The Wasp, 1918 · page 71 of 330
The Wasp — 1918 — page 71: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains **prose fiction, not a cartoon**. It's a narrative excerpt from a serialized story in *The Wasp* magazine featuring characters named Burnham, Todd, and an unnamed young woman. The passage describes a dramatic rowing scene: Burnham and young Todd are straining to row a boat under intense heat toward an island. When Todd collapses from exhaustion, Burnham takes both oars and rows alone—a physically heroic but also performative gesture. The text explicitly notes Burnham's self-awareness: he checks whether the young woman has noticed his "heroic and humane action," then modestly lowers his gaze while pulling "desperately." The satire appears to target male vanity and performative masculinity—Burnham's nobility is undercut by his obvious desire for admiration, suggesting his kindness is partly theater for romantic effect.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
62 THE WASP in the shade of the tented sail. The man and : the boy breathed heavily as they pulled on the oars. The sweat hopped out on their skins and ran like quicksilver. Their eyes shrank from the encompassing shimmer and glow, and ’ when they turned their faces to the island it rocked and swayed in their sight as if a giant of earthquake shouldered the bases of its Breen hills. The lad Todd failed in his stroke. Burnham turned and glanced at him, and saw that he had sagged forward across the grip of the oar. An oath trembled on the man’slips; but he remem- bered the young woman in time to restrain it. 4 *“* Unship your oar and lie down, lad,” he said | kindly. Todd obeyed; and Burnham possessed him- self of the discarded oar and pulled double. He shot a glance beneath the awning at the young woman, to see whether or not his heroic and humane action had been noticed. Her eyes were wide open and fixed upon his face in a downright stare of admiration and commenda- tion. He lowered his own glance modestly and pulled desperately at the heavy oars. a At last the boat crawled around a point of © land and turned sluggishly into the little bay — icomicbooks'com