Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, October 1921 · page 55 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #25 — page 55: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous personal essay rather than a political cartoon. The author describes encountering a beautiful young woman on the New York subway at Columbus Circle, becoming so entranced he misses his stop. The punchline reveals she was lame (disabled), undermining his romantic fantasy. The piece then shifts to mockery of a door-to-door salesman pitching silk stockings, with a innuendo-laden reply about being "careful"—likely referencing concerns about sexually transmitted infections, a social anxiety of the 1920s era. The humor relies on deflating romantic idealization and poking fun at overeager salesmen. The tone is lighthearted satire of urban dating anxieties and commercial intrusion into professional life. No specific political figures are referenced.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 53 Arthur Neale's Page Boarding our Interborough subway car at Columbus Circle the other day en route for our office—or, to be more exact, the office in which we have desk room—we espied one of the lovliest young feminine creatures it had ever yet been our good fortune to gaze on. She would have inspired artists to undreamed of master-pieces—she would have thrilled even a sign-painter. Bathed in her beauty we rode on, ob-livious of all else—even our getting off stop. How we wished that we knew her! At Times Square she arose to alight. Poor girl—she was lame. Still reflecting on this, we reached the office and started to put the final—not finishing—touches to the musical composition we were then at work on, a snappy little one-step en-titled “When My Baby Smiles at Me, I Wish She’d See a Dentist.” We had no sooner put pen to paper when one of these wandering salesmen entered the office and planked down his bag of wares on the desk. “Would you be interested in anything in ladies’ silk stock-ings?” he said. “We used to be,” we replied. “But now we know it’s best to be careful.” During that day we had to make a trip further downtown, and so used the subway again. Seated opposite to us was a very nice