Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, May 1921 · page 63 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #20 — page 63: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This satirical story mocks traveling salesmen ("drummers") of the era. The joke hinges on their reputation for infidelity and exaggeration. The salesmen boast to a skeptical pastor about their marital faithfulness—claims so obviously false that the minister offers a silk hat to anyone truthfully claiming lifelong fidelity. The pastor "wins his point," exposing their lies. The punchline reverses expectations: when John's wife asks why he didn't accept the challenge, he admits the real reason wasn't his infidelity—it's that he looks bad in a silk hat. This undercuts the moral lesson, suggesting vanity matters more than integrity. The satire targets salesmen's reputation for unreliability and dishonesty, while the final joke suggests even when caught in hypocrisy, men prioritize their appearance over admitting wrongdoing. The piece reflects early 20th-century anxieties about male morality and commercial culture.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 61 Those Dreadful Drummers Four or five jolly drummers gathered in the smok- ing compartment of a Pullman car, and soon their conversation drifted to the great problem of the day— women. In the party also was a frock-coated pastor of serious mien. The salesmen winked at each other as the minister entered, and then, as if to have some harmless pleasure, one after another started telling of the wonderful vir- tues of the knights of the grip. “I am often away from home for four weeks at a time,” one salesman commenced, “and I never even look at another woman.” “And I am so bound up in the charms of my wife that I’m ashamed to tip the check girls,” declared the next one. “Why, my wife is so good to me that I won’t allow a woman to wait on me in a restaurant,” said another. Their conversation sounded too much like unadul- terated bunk for the good minister to swallow, and he joined the party by offering a silk hat to any salesman present who could truthfully say he had always been faithful to his wife. The pastor won his point and the conversation soon drifted to other subjects. The next day one of the salesmen arrived home and soon told his wife of the jolly party in the Pullman smoker. “But, John,” she said, “why didn’t you take him up?” John’s active salesman brain worked quickly. “Why, Mable, you know I look like hell in a silk hat.”