Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1921 · page 25 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #18 — page 25: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two humorous anecdotes typical of 1920s American satirical magazines. **"He Gets a Tip"** is a double-entendre joke playing on sexual innuendo. A gentleman discovers he must stay overnight at a full house and eagerly accepts the hostess's suggestion to share a bed with "the cook"—expecting the pretty waitress. The punchline reveals the cook is male and engaged, subverting the narrator's (and reader's) expectation of a romantic encounter. **"Oh, Mommer, Boil My Socks"** is a crude boarding-house joke about unsanitary conditions. A lodger uses a dog for wiping his fingers instead of napkins; after the dog is washed, the cook uses that bathwater for soup, creating an implied disgusting meal. Both jokes reflect 1920s humor conventions: sexual misunderstanding and lowbrow grotesquerie. The content targets boarding-house culture—common accommodations for working men—and mocks both their conditions and inhabitants through exaggeration.
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Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 23 He Gets a Tip The dinner was excellent, and what made it bet- ter still was the fact that the girl who waited at table was one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen in his life. And now it was time for him to leave his host and hostess and return to town. As luck would have it, however, it was discovered, too late, that the last train had gone. There was no alternative—he would have to stay the night, but the difficulty was that the house was full. At last a bright idea seemed to strike the hostess. “I hardly like to suggest it,” she said, “but would you mind turning in with the cook?” Knowing full well that they kept only the one maid, whom he had already seen, he accepted the offer with almost unseemly alacrity. “Oh, that’s all right,” said the hostess, obviously much relieved; “the bed will be quite large enough— you’ll find him quite a superior man; indeed, he’s en- gaged to our parlormaid.” * * * Oh, Mommer, Boil My Socks We’ve heard a lot of boarding house jokes, but the one our hired man, Gus, tells is the prize winner. Gus was boarding in Chicago once where they had no napkins. Whenever Gus wanted to wipe his fingers he called the shaggy Newfoundland dog and rubbed them in the dog’s hair. Saturday night the cook washed the dog and Sunday morning they had soup.