The Wasp — 1891 — page 545: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This page contains three separate satirical pieces from The Wasp magazine: **"A Surprise"** and **"Wandering Thespian"** are brief comic sketches depicting encounters between characters in financial distress—one homeless person asking for money, another asking to borrow a dollar. **"A Midnight Episode"** is a longer story-poem by C. Barnaby, illustrated with sketches. It depicts a man named Plantagenet Smithers at a San Francisco mansion window, delivering passionate (and apparently ridiculous) romantic verses about love and the moon to an unseen woman. **"What the People Are Waiting to See"** is a humorous list of implausible or satirical items—a milkman who can't sell milk, a fixed horse race, a newspaper without New York papers' ideas—mocking San Francisco institutions and newspapers. The satire targets local pretension and absurdity.