The Wasp — 1891 — page 249: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page is primarily **advertising with one cartoon**. The main illustration is titled "HIS NEXT PAINTING," showing an artist and patron discussing the artist's work. The accompanying poem, "THE LAY OF THE GAMBOLIER" (credited to Jean La Rue Burnett), uses extended metaphor comparing different hands—soft, small, stout, scarred—to describe various professions and character types. The cartoon appears to satirize **artistic pretension**: the patron asks what profit to expect from selling the painting, while the artist vaguely responds "the town!" This likely mocks artists' impractical idealism versus commercial reality. The rest consists of San Francisco business advertisements for liquor, pianos, insurance, and other goods typical of late 19th-century publications.