The Wasp, 1913 · page 338 of 364
The Wasp — 1913 — page 338: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page appears to be from a serialized fiction story rather than a political cartoon. Willis, apparently a surgeon, has just encountered James Burnham—described as a well-dressed man with courtly manners who is secretly "a bloody pirate" with "hands reek with the blood of hundreds." The satire likely targets 19th-century anxieties about appearance versus reality: respectable society figures who hide criminal pasts, or perhaps colonial-era privateers operating under social respectability. Burnham's fine clothes and jewels are framed as "the devil's wages," emphasizing hypocrisy. Kitty's defense—"He was your friend once"—suggests complicated loyalty and history. Without additional context about which historical James Burnham (if any) is referenced, the precise political target remains unclear, though the story dramatizes tension between duty to authorities and personal relationships with charismatic transgressors.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WASP 331 With that he turned and went swiftly down the stairs, leaving the surgeon gaping on the threshold. Willis recovered his wits at last, took the can- dles from the servant, and turned into the room. He set the candles on the table and closed the door. “It was James Burnham,” he said, peering to- ward his wife, who sat in the gloom by the open window, beyond the poor light of the candles. ‘He came to wish us joy, trigged out like a dandy at her majesty’s court—and a bloody pirate, ’tis said! It would be no more than my duty, as an honest Z citizen, to-inform the authorities of his presence in London. His hands reek with the blood of hun- dreds, if we could but see it. His fine clothes are sodden with innocent blood. The jewels on his fingers are the devil’s wages to him for work well done—if what I have been told is true. I should have held him when he was here. I should have thrown the charge in his teeth; but the amazing self-assurance of the man and the suddenness and fine manners of him scattered my wits.” “No, no!” cried Kitty. “He was your friend « once.” : Comichooks.com