Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, January 1922 · page 20 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #29 — page 20: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous story exploiting Victorian-era propriety anxieties. A young man visiting a lady stays late; when a storm prevents his departure, she offers him a spare bedroom—a gesture that would raise eyebrows in strict society, implying impropriety. The joke's punchline reveals Charlie's "delicate habit": he runs home through the downpour to fetch his nightshirt rather than spend the night in her house without it. This demonstrates exaggerated concern for propriety—he'll endure pneumonia rather than compromise appearances by wearing borrowed sleeping clothes or (implied) going without. The brief exchange at the bottom about a train smoking and choosing appears unrelated, possibly a separate joke or advertisement filler. The satire mocks both Charlie's excessive prudishness and the rigid social conventions that make such absurd behavior seem necessary to maintain respectability.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
18 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang Charlie's Delicate Habits A nice young man called on a nice young lady and spent the evening recently. When he arrived there was not a cloud in the sky, so he carried no umbrella and wore no goloshes nor mackintosh. At 10:00 o'clock when he arose to go, it was raining pitchforks and grindstones. "My, my, my!" said the nice young lady, "if you go out in this storm you will catch your death of cold." "I'm afraid I might," was the trembling answer. "Well, I'll tell you what—stay all night; you can have Tom's room, as he is visiting uncle and aunt up in the country. Yes, occupy Tom's room. Excuse me a minute, and I'll just run up and see if it's in order." The young lady fled gracefully upstairs to see if any tidying was necessary. In five minutes she came down to announce that the room was in readiness, but no Charles was in sight. In a very few minutes, however, he appeared, dripping wet and out of breath from running and with a bundle in a newspaper under his arm. The nice young lady greeted him with: "Why, Charles, where have you been?" "Been home after my night shirt," was his reply, as he hung his hat up to drip. * * * That train smokes a lot. Yes, and choos, too.