The Wasp, 1913 · page 293 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 293: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **serialized fiction**, not a political cartoon. It's a narrative excerpt from *The Wasp*, a satirical magazine, describing what appears to be a seafaring adventure story. The text follows characters James and Henry Todd who spot a Boston brig called the *Virtue* (spelled variously as "Vartue" and "Virtue"). James uses this sighting to propose an alternative plan to his original scheme—a night attack on someone named John Trimmer's stronghold, which he now doubts would succeed. The passage suggests internal crew conflict: James suspects John Trimmer may have regained his crew's loyalty through persuasion ("wormed and blustered his way back into the confidence"). **Without seeing page imagery or knowing the publication date and story title, I cannot identify whether this is satirizing actual historical events, specific individuals, or political movements.** The nautical setting and names appear fictional rather than referential to recognizable historical figures or contemporary (to the magazine) scandals.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
288 THE WASP would be the last stage of their progressive voyage. They sailed southward for a day and a night and a day, and on a morning of pearl and gold and pink, off the Saints’ Passage, they sighted a small brig to leeward of them, and also heading south. James studied the brig through his glass for a moment, then called Henry Todd to him and handed him the glass. “Tell me if you ever saw that craft before,’ he said. The lad looked, then gave vent to a rattling volley of oaths.- | “The Vartue!” he exclaimed. “The Boston brig Vartue!” James nodded, and called his reduced company to him. He told them what he knew of the brig Vir- tue, and he propounded an elaboration of his origi- nal plan. It might well be, so he said, that a night attack on John Trimmer’s stronghold would fail. Perhaps John had wormed and blustered his way back into the confidence of the majority of his crew by this time. Even if this were not the case, the mischief might Comichooks.com