Life, 1926-11-25 · page 32 of 44
Life — November 25, 1926 — page 32: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains three distinct elements: **1. Burberrys Advertisement (top):** A luxury overcoat ad emphasizing "warmth without weight"—appealing to well-dressed men during the era of early automobiles when motoring required practical yet refined clothing. **2. "Big Business" Satire (center):** A comedic phone conversation lampooning corporate bureaucracy. A simple call to "Mr. Jones" requires navigating multiple secretaries and intermediaries (Blandsford, Hooper, etc.), each screening the call through layers of office hierarchy. The joke: business has become absurdly complicated by administrative gatekeeping, with the caller eventually reaching Jones only for casual golf plans. This satirizes the inefficiency of modern corporate structure. **3. "Mrs. Pep's Diary" (right):** A society diary column poking fun at upper-class dinner party pretensions—guests boring others by mentioning being born near famous department stores (Altman's, Franklin Simon's), and the irritation of conversational disputes that trail off mid-sentence. All three sections mock different aspects of contemporary American life: consumer aspiration, corporate red tape, and social affectation.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
RURKER ESSENTIAL TO COMFORT. YU ODERN conditions of motoring Sy as well as one’s natural desire for comfort and ease make the com- bination of light weight and real warmth essential in any fine overcoat. Burberrys have studied this problem for generations until the Burberry overcoat of today is famous on six continents for exactly this. ] quality of warmth without weight—and also for the exceptionally free-and-easy smartness of its design. It is designed and tailored in England for the use of the well dressed man of affairs everywhere. Dealers Throughout the + United States and Canada BURBERRYS LTD. OF LONDON, ENGLAND For the name of your local dealer, write to our New York Wholesale Office—14 East 38th St. | M. King George V Big Business Furst VOICE: Hello... .Connect Fourtu Voice: No, it’s personal. Tiirv Voice: hold the me with Mr. Jones, please. - Seconp Voice: Who is it calling, dearie? Fmsr Voice: Mr. Smith, of Smith, Smythe and Smith. He wants to talk to Mr. Jones. Secon Voice: Well, hold the line —I'll connect you with his secretary. .--Hello, Mr. Blandsford?...Mr. Smith calling Mr. Jones. Tuirmp Voice: What is it he wishes, please? First Voice: I don’t know. Just a minute. I'll let you talk to his secretary, Hello, Mr. Hooper, talk to this party, please—wants to know what Mr. Smith wants. Fourtn Voice: Hello....Mr. Smith’s secretary speaking. Will you connect me with Mr. Jones? Tuirp Votce: Mr. Jones is in con- ference. Anything I can do for you? I'm his secretary. Well, «Hello... . Marie, connect this with Mr. Jones, in Room 8-B. Seconn Vorce: Awright....Hold the line, party....Hello... Mr. Jones? Fietu Voice: Yah. Seconp Voice: Just a minute— Mr. Smith calling....Here’s Mr. Jones’ party. Fourtu Voice: Hello, Mr. Jones —hold the line, please....Oh, Mr. Smith, here’s Mr. Jones.. Sixt Voice: Hello, Jones? Firtu Voice: Yah. Sixtu Voice: This’ Smith. playin’ golf t’-day? Fietu Voice: Sure, any time. Sixtu Voice: Call f'r ya in ten minutes. Howzat? Firtu Voice: O. K. here. Sixtu Voice: S'long. L. C. Beutel. Say, S'long. Mrs. Pep’s Diary (Continued from page 11) an easy matter in this country....To dinner this night at an inn with Ma- thilde and George White, and George did tell how he had called a railway guard’s attention to a broken window in a Cologne train last sum- mer, and had been made to pay for the damage himself. November Lay late, talking with h Sam about this and at that, and when I did be- seech him to show a little more char- ity in his estimation of poor Hal Bassett, he replied that he might be able to tolerate Hal if he were a for- eigner who spoke very little English. Then did I read over from my book the engagements I had made for us both, and he did announce his hope that we should encounter no more persons at dinner this winter who would make conversation about hav- ing been born on the present site of Altman’s store, and forasmuch as Sam himself was born at about the Thirty-cighth Street entrance of Franklin Simon’s, I did accuse him of jealousy in not having thought of it first as a table topic. We agreed, too, that nothing is more exasperat- ing, when trying to keep a conversa- tion afloat with a dull dinner party, than to hear somebody ejaculate across the board, It’s not so! and then proceed with an out-of-earshot and apparently interesting argu- ment. To luncheon with Mary Lytle, of Rochester, and she told me how her little girl, coming in from a stroll along Fifth Avenue, had said, Mother, what do you think I saw printed on the front of a church? and then shrieked, in gleeful incredi- bility, Collegiate! And when the ices which we ordered came stecped in a rich brown mixture, Mary lamented her husband’s absence, say- ing that she could give him a chopped-up straw hat for dessert if only she covered it with chocolate sauce....At home all the evening, and when Fifi Fitler telephoned me with a tale of woe which caused her voice to choke with tears, I was at some pains to think of a means to cheer her up, so I did finally tell her my secret about the little shop which makes shoes to order for ten dollars and fifty cents, feeling like a girl scout whose deed of kindness for the day has far overshot the requisite mark, Baird Leonard. The Reason “ ALICE scems very reserved all of a sudden, doesn’t she?” “Certainly docs; I wonder for whom.” comicbooks.coml