Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, April 1922 · page 30 of 67
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #32 — page 30: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page contains four satirical pieces typical of 1920s humor magazines: 1. **"The Traveling Man"**: Mocks cheap hotel accommodations—filthy beds, overworked maids—and the salesman's destructive behavior of wrecking the bedding after the maid finally gets it clean. 2. **Infidelity joke**: A dark quip about an affair ending when the woman returns to laundry work and the man to his wife—suggesting class-based relationships and swift consequences. 3. **"Song of Newlywed"**: Comic contradiction—the groom insists he must rush home on his wedding night despite his bride's willingness to let him stay out later. The humor lies in reversed expectations about newlywed behavior. 4. **Final pieces**: Absurdist humor—a nonsensical proverb and a drunk teamster attempting to tie his wagon to a lamppost (confusing Emerson's inspirational phrase "hitch your wagon to a star" with literal, drunken action). The satire targets working-class life, infidelity, and masculine foolishness.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
28 Captain Billy's Whiz Bang The Traveling Man I register, most any old hotel, some bug cage, fire trap with glue plant smell. In dark- ened hall I seek the number on the door, and find the bed—a sea of tumbled rags, used many nights before. And often I must lend my aid to drowsy, hook-worm chambermaid, who spreads and shakes and smoothes and tucks and toils and sweats to make it well—then I jump in and tear it all t'ell! * * * They were always happy until a stranger wrecked their lives, For she went back to the laundry, and he went back to his wife. * * * Song of Newlywed I must go home tonight, Oh, I must go home tonight, I don't care if it's snowing, Blowing, I'm going, I got married only this morning, And it fills me with delight, I'll stay out as long as you want next week, But I must go home tonight. * * * For verily he that sitteth upon a toad stool shall arise again. * * * “Might as well hitch my wagon to a star,” said the drunken teamster, as he passed his rope around the lamp-post.