The Wasp, 1918 · page 30 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page is **prose narrative fiction**, not a cartoon. It's from a serialized story featuring James Burnham, a hot-tempered protagonist who has just arrived in Hobkirk (likely Scotland, given references to a Scottish merchant). The passage depicts Burnham's stay with Angus McLatchy, a pious Scottish merchant characterized by the satirical stereotype of stern Calvinist respectability—constantly alternating between his ledger and Bible. The satire is gentle: McLatchy is portrayed as humorlessly religious and suspicious, while Burnham is revealed as violently temperamental and self-aware enough to recognize his own capacity for rage. The humor comes from Burnham's dark self-recognition: he literally imagines murdering McLatchy with the merchant's own ledger. This psychological self-awareness forms the joke—Burnham is a "devil" masquerading as civilized, and he knows it. The text supports *The Wasp's* satirical purpose: puncturing pretense and exposing human nature beneath social convention.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
THE WASP a devil in a peaceable gentleman like Mr. Burn- ham ought to bé clapped into irons.” The long voyage terminated in an _ hour, and James Burnham parted from Hobkirk and the crew on the best of terms. Mr. Boyle did not appear to wish him Godspeed. He found Angus McLatchy to bea Scot of the most respectable type, long-faced, bleak- browed, dry of hand, everlastingly turning from his ledger to his Bible and back again, and finding -comfort and food for thought in both. Burnham spent two nights and two days under the worthy merchant’s roof. Both men con- ducted themselves coolly, watchfully, politely ; but neither warmed to the other. McLatchy felt - a sharp distrust of Burnham’s eyes; and Burn- ham found nothing that appealed to him in McLatchy’s nature, sugar, or Bible. He envied the merchant the story told by the ledger, however. He looked inward and saw that his temper would not stand a great deal of _ McLatchy and his ways, and that the affair might terminate ina sudden and violent death. _ He was beginning to know himself for what _ he teally was. He saw a picture of himself - braining the Scot with the weighty ledger. So, Comichooks.com