The Wasp, 1918 · page 125 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 125: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This appears to be a dramatic dialogue from a serialized story within the satirical magazine, rather than a political cartoon. The scene depicts Burnham attempting to manipulate a woman named Kitty away from her suitor Percy. **The Social Satire:** Burnham mocks the class anxiety of "fashionable" society—specifically how families obsess over marrying daughters to wealthy men. He ridicules the prospect of Percy, whose family makes corsets and breeches (working-class trades), being stripped of his fortune by in-laws seeking social advantage. **Burnham's Pitch:** Rather than pursuing respectable marriage, Burnham presents himself as a self-made adventurer operating "among these islands" (likely colonial settings), arguing he's naturally equipped for fortune-hunting without social legitimacy. **The Satire's Target:** The passage mocks Victorian class pretension and commercial marriage—how wealth and trade determine social acceptance more than character. Burnham's cynical "gamester" philosophy and Kitty's tears suggest the author views such calculations as morally corrupting.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
116 THE WASP you’ll find him a rare, fine husband—a champion a to be proud of. They’ll strip him of the corset- maker’s fortune, I tell you, the moment they get wind of the marriage. They think they can buy a daughter of some family of condition for him ; and what think you they’ll say when they — find him held in matrimonial leash by the wench _of the tailor of Wantage? Corset-maker and breeches-maker! There is too much a same- ness of degree there for either one to mend the other in the eyes of the. fashionable world.” | Kitty’s shoulders drooped and trembled with : ill-suppressed sobs. a ‘¢ Picture your bold Percy with empty pockets,” continued Burnham heartlessly. “ Picture that _ flabby, befuddled fool with his bread to win by his own hand anda wife to feed. Use your wits, my dear! You know him; and look at me, my kitten. If my father disowns me, do I go naked and hungry? I have been robbed at home, and again in these islands ; but do you see me in rags, or slinking in side alleys, or any man’s servant ?- Nature armed me at birth for the game of life. I see a play in these seas, my girl, that lacks nothing but a true gamester. I shall grasp a fortune among these islands. @ Come back to me, Kitty! We are of the spirit ~ comicbooks:com |