The Wasp, 1913 · page 11 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 11: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is prose fiction rather than a cartoon—a narrative excerpt from a story about a character named John Trimmer facing financial and social ruin. The text describes Trimmer in St. Paul's Churchyard, depressed after witnessing "a ghastly procession of thieves, housebreakers, masterless men, and footpads" bound for plantations (likely transportation to penal colonies). Trimmer's own fortunes are failing. He's been caught cheating at gambling (his "fingers were not clever enough" for dice manipulation), abandoned by companions and even "Kitty Trimmer, of Wantage, whom he had clothed"—suggesting he'd been a kept woman's patron. The satire mocks a dissolute gentleman now desperate and friendless, his criminal options exhausted, facing only the "road" (highway robbery) as remaining recourse.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
10 THE WASP Alley, St. Paul’s Churchyard, in a black mood. That ghastly procession of thieves, housebreakers; masterless men, and footpads on their way to the plantations in the islands, and John Trimmer’s face in the midst of it, had set his mind along a line of dark and uncomfortable reflections. His own fortunes were at a dangerous ebb, and he was without hope of an immediate turn of the tide. Already he had been forced to several ques- tionable and dangerous expedients for the replen- ishing of his pockets, and already he felt the eyes of suspicion upon him. His fingers were not clever enough for the improper manipulation of the dice and cards, it would seem; so what was left to him but the road? He doubted if his grieved and indignant father would give him another chance. And his town companions, brawlers and reckless gamesters though they were, had eased away from him during the past two days. Even Kitty had deserted him— Kitty Trimmer, of Wantage, whom he had clothed comichooks.com |