Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, March 1924 · page 8 of 71
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #57 — page 8: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This page from *Captain Billy's Whiz Bang* (a humor magazine popular in the early 20th century) contains two distinct humor pieces: **Top section:** Brief joke fragments, likely setups for longer stories—references to traveling salesman jokes (a common ribald genre), Houdini (the famous magician/escape artist), and suggestive scenarios on trains. **Main story:** A schoolteacher corrects boys' names, insisting on formal versions: "Si" becomes "Silas," "Tom" becomes "Thomas." The joke's payoff: when she asks a third boy his name, he responds "Jackas"—appearing to say an offensive term, but actually his literal name. The humor exploits the double meaning, suggesting the teacher's pedantic corrections about proper names have backfired absurdly. The joke relies on dialect/colloquial speech patterns common in rural Minnesota humor of that era.
📄 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 And here are some more: “Not by the apples.” “A traveling salesman had to stop at a farm-house one night—” “A young couple had the opposite berth—” “The King laughed—” “—we will call him Houdini.” “Yes, and will you give her another chance?” “Girl on train. Man. Magazine.” ON the first day of the second semester in the Lake City, Minn., school, the little boys took their seats and waited until the teacher came down among them to get their names. The first one to whom she came replied that his name was Si. “No,” the teacher corrected, “you mustn’t say Si. It’s Silas.” Next she came to one who said his name was Tom. “No,” the teacher said impressively, “it’s Thomas.” “And now, little boy,” she inquired of a lad in the end row, “what is your name?” “Jackas,” responded the bright lad.