The Wasp, 1918 · page 155 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 155: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is from a serialized fictional narrative in *The Wasp*, not a political cartoon. It depicts a pirate story featuring a character named Trimmer and his ship, which becomes known as "the Wasp." The passage describes Trimmer's opportunistic violence: he encounters a merchant ship during mutiny, joins the winning side through brutal force, recruits survivors, and loots the vessel. He later repaints his own schooner without a name "for luck," claiming this superstition has protected him through multiple raids with minimal crew losses. The dialogue between Trimmer and a character (possibly named Burnham or Jim) suggests cynical humor about piracy—naming the ship "Wasp" because of the harm it inflicts on "fools," though Trimmer dismisses luck as irrelevant. The satire appears to mock pirate adventure narratives popular in the era, presenting rapacious violence with darkly comedic detachment rather than romanticizing it.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
146 THE WASP A few weeks later Trimmer had been fortunate enough to encounter a large merchant-ship at the moment of mutiny. He boarded and joined © the fight when the victory was hanging in the balance and both sides were weak and exhausted. He overpowered both the con- tending parties with great slaughter, recruited from the pick of the survivors, then looted and scuttled the ship. She proved a rich prize. ‘Two weeks later he had an opportunity to careen and scrape his schooner and to paint her. He painted out the’ vessel’s original name and, for luck, let her go without a name. And this — whim. had proved lucky. He had taken many ships and lost nothing more valuable than a score or so of his men. “She is called the Wasp,” said Baraka “A good name for her, from the pot of view of the fools she stings !”’. *¢ There’s no luck ina name,’ > replied Trimmer doggedly, “‘so don’t you give her one, Jim. Now tell me what deviltries fetched you to these © parts. Pass the rum and the water-monkey first.” : : The white schooner continued to lie in the hidden basin until the morning of the third & ez = x , x 1s Seka AD SR eR Eee ON eae Comicbooks!com|