The Wasp — 1894 — page 185: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

This six-panel satirical comic depicts a gentleman in formal dress (top hat, tuxedo) repeatedly discovering and losing a collapsible opera hat in what appears to be a woman's clothing or dressing area. The sequence shows him hiding the hat, searching for it, retrieving it, and concealing it again among draped fabrics and garments. The joke appears to be a double-entendre about infidelity or clandestine romantic encounters. The "collapsible opera-hat" likely serves as innuendo—the gentleman is repeatedly "finding" it in compromising domestic situations, suggesting affairs conducted in ladies' dressing rooms. The satire mocks Victorian hypocrisy regarding propriety and hidden scandals among well-dressed society men.