Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 3 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 3: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This is a humorous travel narrative satirizing post-WWI American social pretension and etiquette obsession. The unnamed narrator and his "red-headed wife" journey seeking proper table manners, ironically violating Emily Post's etiquette rules everywhere they go—Montreal, New York, North Carolina, Atlanta. The satire targets newly wealthy Americans mimicking refined behavior while remaining clueless about proper conduct. References to "bean harvesters" stabbing artichokes and "garlic meringues" with pocket knives mock their comical misuse of farm tools as dining implements. South Dakota emerges as the story's moral center: honest, unpretentious ranch culture where etiquette rules don't matter. The narrator—signed "Gullible" (the byline puns on the travel narrative genre)—ultimately finds comfort abandoning artificial sophistication for authentic rural simplicity. The cartoon's "WHIZ BANG" explosion reinforces the joke's comedic impact.
📄 Transcribed text from this page (OCR, searchable)
Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
This Magazine is Edited by a Spanish-American and World War Veteran and is Dedicated to the Fighting Forces of the United States and Canada. Gullible's Travels! ONE day away back in December my red-headed wife and I finished the milking, padlocked the henhouse door and started out across country determined to learn for ourselves the correct implements of farm machinery one should employ on one's table delicatessen. For six weeks we hunted wild ales in Montreal, shot pink taxis in New York; beat the bush for golfs in Pinehurst, N. C., and searched the cafeterias of Atlanta, Ga., trying to find a few Northern beans in the Southern succotash. EVERYWHERE we found guilty guests stabbing at innocent artichokes with bean harvesters and otherwise violating every injunction in Emily Post's “Dont's for Newly Rich Digger's.” Not everywhere—perhaps. Enroute home we detoured to Fort Pierre, S. D., to hunt wild buffalo on the Scotty Phillips ranch—and once again the old farmer felt at ease. Nobody on the South Dakota plains cares a cuss whether you scythe your garlic meringues with pocket knives or break all 17 amendments to the Book of Etiquette. It's quite the contrary. Stanley Phillips told me an amusing story of a sheep-herder who was enjoying an afternoon snooze when a little