Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1921 · page 6 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #18 — page 6: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains two humorous anecdotes from an early 20th-century satirical magazine. **First Story**: Bob Jaeger visits a "National Dutch room" cabaret featuring jazz dancers doing the "shimmy" (a popular 1920s dance). Bob's response—suggesting they play a wedding march "quick"—is a joke about the dancers' vigorous, sexually suggestive movements; he's implying they need to get married rather than dance so provocatively. **Second Story**: Gus, an employee sensitive about foot perspiration, misidentifies French chalk (a standard shoe-fitting powder) as "chloride of lime" (actual disinfectant). His angry outburst stems from ignorance—he thinks the clerk is insulting him by suggesting his feet need heavy disinfection, when the chalk serves merely practical purposes. The humor lies in Gus's oversensitivity and misunderstanding of common commercial practice. Both stories satirize everyday social awkwardness and misunderstandings among ordinary people.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
4 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang THE other evening I picked up my old neighbor, Bob Jaeger, for a flivver spin to see the sights of Minneapolis. First of all we visited the National Dutch room to enjoy the cabaret. Bob was much astounded as he viewed the shapely dancers shimmying to the jazziest of jazz orchestrations. “What do you think of it, Bob?” I inquired. “I think you’d better ask the orchestra to play a wedding march, and play it quick,” he retorted. * * * IGNORANCE sometimes causes lots of trouble, and sometimes it falls upon the innocent. Witness the case of Gus, our hired man. I went with Gus to the Shoe Palace in Robbinsdale while he purchased a new pair of boots. Now Gus suffers from a common malady—perspiration of the feet—and he’s very sensitive about it. The clerk sprinkled some French chalk into the new shoes as he was about to try them on. Gus got up angrily. “If I can’t try on a pair of your boots without having you sprinkle chloride of lime in them, I’ll take my trade elsewhere,” he bellowed. It was with much difficulty that I pacified Gus and explained the use of the chalk. So now Gus has a new pair of boots, and without the lime disinfectant.