Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1921 · page 24 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #19 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a romantic fiction excerpt from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang*, a 1920s-era American humor magazine. The piece is a humorous narrative about a young man named Ken Conniston on a moonlit date in a car's back seat. The satire is gentle and period-specific: it mocks the clichéd conventions of romance stories while simultaneously indulging in them. The author, Jane Gaites, playfully acknowledges that heroines in such tales are interchangeable ("no two women...are identically alike," yet all get the same "write-up"), and she jokes that the darkness of moonlight conveniently hides the girl from view—so she'll simply *describe* her instead. The title "He Who Hesitates" suggests the story will concern a man's reluctance or uncertainty in romantic pursuit, contrasting with Ken's confident approach ("the way of a man with a maid"). The humor lies in the knowing, self-aware treatment of hackneyed romantic scenarios that were popular entertainment of the era.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
22 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Strolling With Jane Gaites He Who Hesitates By JANE GAITES THE moon is responsible for many things—so is the back seat of almost any automobile. Instead of wading through the usual tiresome description of the “perfect summer’s eve,” let us draw our own conclusions of moonlight scenery and peep into the cozy little sedan belonging to Ken Conniston, the hero. As no two women in the world are identically alike, we can give them all a “write-up” and the heroines will be somewhat dissimilar. Anyway, just because the two occupants of the back seat happen to know that old Mr. Moon-Man is “Johnny on the spot,” is no reason to claim that his rays are any too bright, and as you can’t see the girl to advantage, I’ll tell you about her. Of course she is beautiful (every heroine must be), but hers is an unusual sort of beauty that is made up of large browu eyes, tawny hair and adorable red lips. Ken knows “the way of a man with a maid,” and he is not wasting precious time by talking of the weather. “Sweetheart,” he whispers tenderly, as he draws