Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, May 1921 · page 8 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #20 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from the satirical magazine contains a humorous anecdote about dining etiquette. The unnamed narrator describes "Gus," a crude, uncouth man with atrocious table manners who eats asparagus by sucking it directly rather than using proper utensils—compared to a street-cleaning suction hose from WWI Paris. A refined woman ("Miss B—") initially attempts correct etiquette but abandons it, mimicking Gus's crude approach. The joke celebrates her adaptability to "backwood" behavior, though she remains slightly more refined. The final section is self-deprecating humor: the narrator admits his only virtue—being tender-hearted—while his wife (Mrs. Bill) uses this as coded criticism, implying excessive weakness (unwilling to kill flies or beat carpets). The satire targets class pretensions and rural versus genteel social standards, typical of 1920s American humor mocking both extremes.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
6 Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang was guided by etiquette and started to eat her aspara- gus with a knife and fork, but Gus changed her mind. Now Gus is a careless sort of fellow. When he sur- rounds a plate of grub he is like time and tide. He waits for no man. He simply surrounds his lips, arms, fingers and what-not in mad haste to consume every- thing on the table. He is oblivious to anything or any- one else. So Gus grabbed the butt end of a big stock of asparagus and sipped the tip of the vegetable in much the same fashion as a steam suction hose cleaned the streets of Paris in our soldier days. But Miss B— was game. In manner demure, she nervously grasped a luscious piece within her slender fingers. Blush- ingly, she placed the tender morsel between her pearly teeth. She was a game little girlie, despite her embar- rassment. The warm butter slobbered over her but, to her credit, may it be said, she went through the ordeal much like a seasoned veteran. At this writing, I am glad to say, our angel is rap- idly becoming accustomed to backwood etiquette and she now can eat away at any size asparagus just as well —well, almost as efficiently as Gus. I said almost. It would be impossible, I believe, to equal his record. * * * At last, thank God, Mrs. Bill admits I have one good quality—that of being tender-hearted. I overheard her telling Gus that I was so tender of heart that I wouldn’t kill a poor, defenseless fly, or even beat a carpet.