The Wasp, 1918 · page 168 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 168: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **serialized fiction narrative**, not political satire or editorial cartooning. It depicts an action sequence from what appears to be a pirate adventure story featuring ships named the *Polly* and the *Black Polly*, with characters including James Burnham and a quartermaster engaged in naval combat. The text describes a dramatic boarding scene: a pistol shot wounds an enemy helmsman, three boats launch toward the damaged vessel, and pirates aboard the *Black Polly* defend themselves by dropping an explosive device that kills members of the boarding party. **No political figures or contemporary references are evident.** This is straightforward adventure fiction—likely serialized entertainment for *The Wasp*'s readers. Without seeing surrounding pages or issue context, the specific story title and publication date remain unclear, but this represents the magazine's fiction content rather than its satirical editorial mission.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WASP 169 boat. A heavy pistol was placed in his fingers, He looked across at the other schooner, raised his arm, and fired. The fellow at the Polly’s wheel slipped to the deck with a scream and the Polly fell sluggishly back to her old course before the wind. The three boats were lowered and pulled briskly away. The quartermaster’s boat sprang into the lead and drew away from the others. James Burnham crouched in the bow of the second boat, sword in hand. All three pulled ' straight for the wounded vessel’s larboard side. At the instant of the quartermaster’s boat touching the Black Polly’s side Burnham, in the bows of the second boat, was not twenty feet away. He saw something black and red appear above the schooner’s rail and fall, with a _¢rash, into the quartermaster’s boat. There _ were enough live pirates on the Black Polly to prepare and drop an explosive ! , The crippled schooner rolled heavily, and, for a second or two, everything—water, men, oars, and boat, seemed to leap heavenward. A flopping shape fell within a yard of Burnham’ s head and plunged into the torn sea. Burnham’s boat drove onward across some : insy, sinking wreckage ; and he jumped through comichooks.c