“Well, that was more than I expected to spend. But if it helps me keep track of the wench and those seven little….”
“Ma’am! Look out for the…..”
“Oh, insult and incinerate it!”
“I really should have moved your broom farther inside. Are you hurt, Ma’am?”
“My old bones have been through worse than this, but did I break the….”
“Ma’am, you shouldn’t unwrap that mirror.”
“Don’t be stupid. If I cut myself, I won’t even bleed at my age. I just want to see…flames! It’s cracked. At least none of the pieces fell out. Well, since I handed over those cryptozoic scrolls, I guess paid for it. It’s still….”
“No, Ma’am! Don’t look! Wrap the mirror again and….”
“Get away; I won’t ask for a refund. The picture’s still…. Wow! I get a different scene in every piece now!”
“A mirror like that increases in power, Ma’am, but it can cast….”
“There’s the wench herself. And what’s this in the corner. A striped albino flying monkey? I haven’t seen one of those in….”
“Ma’am, look this way Can you tell how many fingers I’m….”
“Ooh, kitties! What else can I find in here?”
“Almost anything, Ma’am. That’s how it works its….”
“Let’s see, now. Here’s that rotten elderly wolf! Ha! Let’s…. You got any snacks?”
“I can bring tea, Ma’am, but if you plan to sit there in my doorway, I’ll have to ask for a few more scrolls.”
“Never mind. At home there’s cold brew in the cauldron. Where’s that broom?”
“Here, Ma’am. No, over…a little up. There! Are you, er, sure you can fly and watch the mirror at the same time?”
“I know my way home in the dark. I can do this. Thanks! This is the most brilliant….”
“Look out for that cloud over…. Dear dear. I hope this only takes seven years..”
The problem with archaeology is that the world wants answers, not just simple answers, but answers which are simple and absolutely fascinating. For every person who is interested in controversies about pharaonic Egyptian paint composition, there are a thousand who want to know how many ancient Egyptian temple maidens were blonde. This is a problem with joke archaeology as well. I see that this year I have written two columns on postcard jokes which require some context to understand. I could do this because I felt I had the answers. But, um, there ARE some fine old jokes where I have to admit I don’t quite git it. I cannot promise that any of these involve temple maidens at all.
Here is Buchsenmacher (Gunsmith) Sepp. What I have learned on the Interwebs is that this is about it. This portrait was all over everywhere in Germany in the 1970s or thereabouts. But I can learn nothing else: the portrait did not spin off into a line of cartoons or jokes or comic books. He DID have a wife, who is also a postcard icon, but…what’s it all about, Deutschland?
If you are enough of an archaeologist to look over the oldest days of this blog, you will see that I did a column on “handing you one”. But in all those postcards, what was being handed over was a lemon. (I never did QUITE get to the bottom of why handing someone a lemon was the equivalent of a later generation’s “giving you the raspberry”.) Are we just taking an everyday occurrence and relating it to the lemon gag, or am I missing something here? (Please don’t write in about the phrase “to give him one”, which is entirely other.)
I put this up for sale as a Mother’s Day card, but that may be original with me. This comes from an era when I’m told we did not make jokes about infidelity, but I may, like Rick, have been misinformed.
Someday I will discuss another catchphrase of a bygone era: “Who said rats?” which usually involves a postcard showing very alert dogs. So I know a LITTLE about this joke. Now, “bugs” was once a description of someone crazy, taken from “seeing bugs”, a phrase for having the D.T.s (a state in which we moved on to “seeing snakes” and “seeing pink elephants”. “Can it” may have started in the Bronx, but is still used in some places for “Cut it out. Stop it.” But how does this all work together? Or doesn’t it? Maybe we assume too much: some jokes didn’t even work at the time they were made and we sure won’t figure them out now. This artist may just have wanted to draw a big bug. No, canned beer was not available at this point, except in the can, or growler, used to haul it. And yes, what we said earlier does explain how Bugs Bunny got his name.
Why is the postal lady throwing mail around? What does this have to do with the caption? Or do we just assume, as above, that the author simply wanted to draw a lady in shorts and filled in the rest later?
Why is…what’s her suit…does she…. What I really mean is where is she going in town and why don’t I ever get invited?
And this is obviously some sort of gag mocking the Temperance movement and some paricular Temperance group. But I’m not sure what specific group we’re mocking as the “Wee wee Club”, and I DO wonder (given their expressions and their drinking habits) whether “wee wee” meant in 1909 what it does today. But that is a WHOLE nother blog. If I find out, I’ll let you know, as with the others. Unless the authorities come to find out why I am Googling “wee wee” so much.
His Imperial Worship frowned, his chin on his palm, one little finger between his lips. “It might be amusing to send you out next,” he said, his eyes steady on the monitor, “He might kill you out of general principle.”
Nubry formed a large letter Y, head down and with her feet far enough apart to suggest His Imperial Worship was thinking of making her into a T, but hadn’t made up his mind yet. It was not a comfortable position, but she could, at least, see the second monitor, the one that printed out as text what was being said by the contestants on the silent screen above it.
The Emperor knew this. “It is a pity you’re literate,” he said. “There’s so much more suspense if the prisoner doesn’t know what the group is deciding. But even the Imperial Power can’t have everything.”
She could read upside-down, though it was not a skill she’d ever expected to use much. The real pity was that the one thing she had never learned to read was lips.
YOU UNDERSTAND, CAPTAIN, SIR: FREQENTLY THEY DO MAKE THE PRISONER WATCH THE MONITORS.
I HOPE IT WAS THE REAL ONE, MY BLUE BEAUTY. SHE TALKS ABOUT NOTHING BUT HER BILSTIM BOOKS.
“You’ll like this,” the Emperor told her, still not looking back. “Where they open the door and see they’re not out yet. This gets better with each door.”
A bulging iron porthole sprang open at a touch to reveal a vast, undulating blue web. The Blue Klamathan took a step onto the sticky fibers and turned to Bott.
THAT LITTLE LIBRARIAN WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN ABLE TO COPE EFFICIENTLY WITH THIS SOR T OF ROOM, WOULD SHE, CAPTAIN SIR?
OH, NEVER. SHE WOULD HAVE BEEN A GREAT OBSTACLE TO OUR PROGRESS.
Nubry frowned. “Will they really be able to reach the Dragonshelf?”
His Imperial Worship reached into a tall glass column at his elbow./ Nubry had read about these. Filled with dirt, they eld vast cities of the tiny Pitchopki, a highly developed if minuscule race of sentients. A steeple and two legs dribbled onto his chin as he chewed.
“Of course,” he said, around the mouthful. “That’s why they have so many rooms to go through. Any less, and I would be untrue to my own empire. Besides, they’d probably blow up the ship, thinking it was a trap, if they got there too soon.”
The Imperial head came around to take in her expression at the thought of the ship being destroyed. “And what do you suppose you will do when you see them fly away without you?”
The idea had not previously occurred to Nubry. She gave it some thought. “I believe I’d cry. Would I? Yes, I would.”
Something about this answer brought a crease to the Imperial forehead. A thumb landed on the chair controls, and he came over to study his prisoner. A long fingernail came out to stroke the line of her chin. “I wonder if your pirate would recognize a copy that was missing just one toe.”
Nubry would have pulled back if she could; the Imperial breath was not enhanced by being flavored with the deaths of intelligent beings. His Imperial Worship smiled, and fingered the controls of the chair again. It moved around to the back of the prisoner, where she couldn’t see him.
Nubry felt herself being lowered, slowly enough that she could pull her head to the side and rest on her chest when she reached the square below. She rested for one second and then was jerked stark upright in moments, nearly dislocating both shoulders. Knowing there was no position she could move to to ease the tension, she looked up to the screen.
The green Klamathan was kicking spiders as big as her head left and right. Bott was removing the Gold Klamathan from a tangle of webs.
YOU COULD NEVER HAVE DONE THIS WITH THAT USELESS LIBRARIAN, EH, CAPTAIN SIR?
LET US FIND A ROOM WITH A GOOD SOFT FLOOR, MY ORANGE CONFECTION, AND I SHALL DEMONSTRATE SEVERAL THINGS I COULD NOT HAVE DONE WITH THAT BOOK-WORSHIPPER.
Her midsection jerked forward. The second kick twisted her to the left, grinding that wrist against its manacle. The third kick landed as a new kind of pain proved that her ankle cuff was being moved to make her kick herself. Silly of her to think His Imperial Worship would have gone to the trouble. She wondered if he even had feet, or was permanently attached to his chair.
She bit her lower lip. Each kick bounced her joints further into difficult positions: a few more and either hers arms or that eg would be completely disjointed. She’d never seen this before, and swung her head left and right to find out what it looked like.
“I should make copies of you for my own collection; you’re an interesting houseguest.” The chair slid around her again. “But enough pleasure before business.”
Nubry snorted as she felt the copier start up again. As the first pains rippled through her, she twisted to the left. His Imperial Worship had thoughtfully left enough give in the manacles to allow for withing. A pop at each shoulder told her she had missed the spectacle of seeing her shoulder come apart.
She pulled to her right; this did not ease any of the pain. Perhaps she should think about something else, as her mother had suggested every year during the annual inoculations. She considered the screen. What did she know about Bott Garton?
He was not tall. At the moment he was punching spiders taller than he was. But he wished to be as big a man as his father, in deeds if not in inches.
He was musical. They had not had the leisure for him to demonstrate his harmonica repertoire, but she was certain he would be the best harmonica player she’d ever listened to.
She blinked away some of the sweat pouring down her face. He was interested in reading. Even now, he was looking through her book, apparently seeking the conversation between Bunny Bunk and Spider Stringer as he and his party paused between a strand of web leading to a red door and one leading to a yellow door.
Why didn’t her teeth snap? Her jaws were doing their best to accomplish this. Back to the list: the pirate was a good shot, and probably a good pilot, too, even if he was a little pushy when it came to other people’s ships. Maybe that was because he was a pirate. She breathed in and found her nostrils also flooded with sweat. She didn’t dare sneeze or cough; apparently a large blade was forcing its way up inside her throat.
On the screen Bott was saying something into his card as the four moved through the yellow door. At this angle she could not read what he was saying. That was a pity; it was probably something funny. It had been fun to listen to him make jokes to the Drover. A pilot needed a sense of humor.
And he was one of the good guys. Was he? Yes, he was! The way he talked to the Klamathans was only…a way to mislead them. Yes. He didn’t know them very well, and was afraid they might be Imperial spies. He was lulling them, leading them on until he was sure. You could tell from the way his jaw stuck out that he was holding something back.
“Ohoo!”
That spasm twisted her whole bod y up toward her wrists. Nubry was afraid her spine would snap in four places, but she couldn’t stop. Every muscle in her body was trying to rip free of bone and skin.
The she dangled against her manacles. A new Nubry landed on the floor. For a second, the original watched the copy try to rise on overextended arms. Then the newcomer dropped out of sight.
Her eyes went up to the screen. What had His Imperial Wortship programmed this imitation to do?
Her eyes rested there only a moment. A whirring sound announced the arrival of long multi-jointed arms. Eight-fingered hands jutted from these arms, tiny toothed blades buzzing at the end of each finger. Her eyes—al she could move at the moment without Imperial permission—followed them in. “Enough business,” the emperor declared. “Back to pleasure.”
Kellek tried to see where the voice was coming from, but could find little farther in the murky cave beyond the spiked knees of the demon, high above him. “Vengeance,” he said, through cracked lips.
“On whom, mortal?” The voice of doom sounded a little bored.
“My king, his court officials, and those of his army who decided to destroy our village to build a new palace. They killed my family, my neighbors, my dog.” Kellek tried to hold his voice steady, but the long climb up the mountain, along with the grueling rituals required to summon the demon, had left him weak. He felt a tear slip down a dry cheek, and lacked the strength to wipe it away.
“And what do you wish to become of these people?” demanded the thunder from far up above him. “And what will you pay to have it happen?”
“Let them die, all die, just when they think they are safe and powerful,” said Kellek. “Let them lose their powers and die, and know themselves to be dying. Give them pain…and fear.”
“Very well,” said the voice. “And what will you pay?”
“Anything.”
The voice rattled the walls, and made Kellek’s bones seem brittle. “Everything?”
Kellek did not hesitate. “Everything.”
“This includes your entire afterlife of service, and you will not like your role in my world.”
“So my enemies die,” said Kellek. “It is…..” The rest of the sentence dissolved with him into a pile of noisome sludge on the temple floor.
Huge toes kicked this out of existence. “What was that all about?” inquired an equally thunderous but slightly higher pitched voice.
“Another to empty buckets of sulfur through eternity. He vowed everything so that his enemies would die.”
“Were his enemies mortals, too? Wouldn’t they have died anyway?”
“Yes. He was a little specific about how he wanted them to go, but the people he picked out are the sort to die much as he hoped, which will satisfy his request.”
The next laugh shook the mountain. “So he should be happy.”
The deeper voice laughed as well, starting several fatal avalanches. “No. Not at all.”
This page seems to be having a run on Marital Woes postcards. A really serious blogger would either settle in for an in-depth discussion of marriage in comedy through the centuries, or move on to some other significant topic, like “Are there regional differences in what people put into their devilled eggs?” But we are not a food blog here (p.s.: I already did a blog on the relationship between devilled eggs and devilled ham and devil’s food cake, which you can check elsewhere on the Interwebs.)
However, what we are going to do is switch from infidelity at the office to issues closer to home. It surprises me how long jokes about dealing with the maid went on in a world which was gradually deciding that hiring servants was the exception rather than the rule.
The joke, of course, depends less on the foolery itself than in the master of the house getting caught at it. There are other comic possibilities, but those involve more words and action than can really be done in one postcard illustration, like this one from 1906 or thereabouts.
There are certain conventions to be observed in framing the joke, which might not need a caption, but which DID require that the maid be a good deal younger than the husband cheating or the wife cheated on. Not all maids were, or are, twenty-somethings with the budget needed to pay for short, suggestive uniforms. But, again, though there might be excellent comedy in a story about a young man cheating on a young wife with a maid who is twice his age, it would be hard to do that on a postcard, even if you used both sides. (Of the postcard, I mean. I WISH you would stop letting these stray giggles of yours interrupt us in our study of vintage comedy.)
It’s the “getting caught” moment which has the comic impact required.
Even when that moment is denied, at least for now.
Or when somebody other than the lady of the house handles the discovery.
When hubby is having a heavy-duty flirtation with the cook, of course, the cook doesn’t even need to be present. Cooks seem always to have been involved in making biscuits or something similar when the mister drops by the kitchen.
Yeah, maybe someday I will also do an in-depth study of the handprint postcard. Anybody who wants to can take the job of analyzing just where those handprints are and deciding what was going on in the kitchen.
The same goes for those of you who might be interested in why there don’t seem to be many postcards about the lady of the house fooling around with the chauffeur. Is it because more postcards were bought by men, who wouldn’t have found that funny? Or did this arise out of a desire to mock the rich and their minions? (Look back over the cards in this column: how many of these homes look big enough to require a host of servants? For cleaning, I mean: not for other purposes.) Maybe, looking over this selection, postcard cartoonists simply liked drawing feather dusters. We can return to this, I suppose, at some future date. I need to get back to devilled egg recipes. (The maid just brought me another tray. Gotta go.)
It was testimony to the lung capacity of Klamathans that Louba was able to sigh so heavily in midflight. “Stick a hat on me butt an’ see if I thinks better that way.” She leapt over the third box of assorted chocolates. “I feels a right lumpuck.”
“They roast lumpucks, don’t they?” inquired Chlorda, slapping at flames in her hair as she ran.
The four contestants fled deeper into the forest, taking full advantage of the canopy of broad green leaves. The shelter wouldn’t do much good for long; each fugitive could see the smouldering holes in the leaves as they rushed on under the wailing lop-eared owls. Not one of them doubted that the Emperor had intended all along for them to come this way. Bott felt that to refuse to fall into this trap would only upset His Imperial Worship.
“All you have to do,” he told himself, “Is make it through this. Then you can retire and live on your reputation for the rest of your days.”
Pretty soon, though, his crew would look to him again for answers. Nubry’s book could carry him only so far. How could he choose between doors if there were no doors to choose?
“Ove here!”
Seeing what Bassada had seen, they swung as one in that direction. Smoke was building up around them: if nothing else that big square well might clear their throats.
“Is it a door, do you think?” Chlorda peered down inside. “Someone jump down and find out.”
“Try it yerself.” The blue was climbing on the wall of the well, but only to get farther under the little roof provided over the top. “Tell us how ye likes it.”
There wasn’t room for all four of them under the little tin roof. Bott looked around for any sign of doors it would soon be impossible to see. The only thing to be seen beyond smoke, leaves, and trees was the well, its stones all marked with carved pictures of Nastrid snails.
Not snails. He frowned. This was a message. He’d never seen that symbol before, but he was recognizing it. Maybe it had been a picture in Nubry’s….
His hand went into the grenade satchel, but came up without the book. He looked from the stones to the horn he’d picked up earlier, the malachite one. He shrugged, and brough it to his lips.
The Klamathans looked to each other, Chlorida shuddering at the sound that came from the horn. “Perhaps his people play a dirge before they’re melted into…lala!”
Everyone jumped left and right from the shelter they’d been elbowing to ge into. Long glass spikes shot up from the well. “Good thing we didn’t any of us try it!” said Louba. “We’da…well, kick me sister and listen if I yells!”
The spikes sat on the roof of a long glass case sliding up before them. A door swung open just as the spikes pierced the tin roof.
“I can pay anything when I’m sober,” Bott told them, setting the instrument back into the satchel. “And I haven’t had a drink in three days. Let’s go!”
The smoke had thickened; there was nowhere else to go. The Emperor was easily wealthy enough to burn down an entire forest and then replace it.
Bott knew some regrets as the four of them squeezed into the glass elevator/ Chlorda pressed his shoulder, whispering congratulations/. The blue stood right behind him, rubbing the seat of his pants. A pinch on his left thigh told him Louba was not going to be left out.
“Crew,” he said as the glass chamber started to slide down into the well, “You know we’re here because nobody has been waiting for the captain’s orders before acting.”
Green shoulders shrugged. “Ain’t easy, cap’n. Cep’n these bits o’ batbait, ain’t had a cap’n since afore I got inta this rebelment business. Me last cap’n wouldn’ put me up fer promotion: said I was too green. So I killed some people.” The big green shoulders bounced again, setting off more bounces around the room. “Mosta her fambly,as II recall. Never knew she’d be so attached to ‘em.”
Bott scowled, ignoring the fingers trickling along his spine. “Well, we’re going to have to take this more seriously if we plan to escape.”
The gold smiled and shook her head. “You do understand, Captain, that His Imperial Wormhips doesn’t intend for us to win this game.”
“We have a chance until he actually kills us.” Bott looked away from the horned skulls peeking in through the walls of the case. “And we should be able to go on for quite a while yet. He wouldn’t let the game end early.”
He found himself surrounded by soft shrugs. “Been here days now,” said Bassada, dealing one buttock a solid squeeze. “Not so bad a life: always sumpm ta do. We c’d stay on and be traps fer what prisoners he sends in next.”
“Until they get tired of feeding us,” said the gold, sliding a hand down Bott’s chest.
The blue continued to give a good workout to what she had hold of. “Anyway, even if we gits out, we gots a whole Drover ta git troo. Even if we does it, where’s we goin’ next?”
Bott glanced down to make sure Chlorda’s fingers didn’t catch in any of the holes torn in his jacket. “That woman you saw—the real one, not the one who went down the ravine—was escaping Imperial forces with…with a special cargo on her ship.” He looked over his shoulder at his crew. “That ship is waiting at the end of this maze.”
Louba grabbed his head and gave it a hug. “Bite m’thigh an’ call it measles! Cap’n Bottsy knows it all!”
Chlorda rubbed one of her cheeks against Bott’s, nudging the green arm out of the way. “Do you honestly believe we’d be allowed to try anything with your friend’s ship?”
The skulls outside the case had given way to exceedingly large Bialfa fireworms. Bott shook his head free and considered his crew again. “I’d as soon be killed in her, escaping, as in this maze.”
The faces around him showed affection, but little conviction. Bott thought it over and added, “The ship has carpeting on the floors.”
Bassada tipped her head to the left. “Does it got…stuff onna ceilin’s we could hang swingy-swings from?”
Bott tried to remember, even as he said “Of course!”
“Sold!” cried Louba. “Ya doesn’t even hasta fly it!”
His crew seemed to be all fingers and lips. Bott wondered if they had squeezed all the breath out of him permanently when the lights went out. Then his nose caught the acrid burnt egg smell peculiar to fireworms.
“I don’t suppose you could arrange to bring that ship of yours in here,” said Chlorda, pulling away from him.
The car stopped descending. “Gotta motivate this thing.” He could feel Louba backing away. She put one hand on each of his shoulders.
“No! Wait!”
The case shuddered under the impact as she came down from her leap. It seemed to work. Bott felt himself moving down again. Then he realized he was moving down upside-down.
“She bunged the frung…ack…floor!”
One advantage to having a crew of Klamathans, Bott decided. There wasn’t much more comfortable to land on in a chute like this.
“Opf!” cried Chlorda, as he bounced away from her stomach. “The…captain has some heft.”
“Jus’ as well,” said Louba, rising to her feet and starting to lower his clothes. “I’m guessin’ it’s time I was stood in a corner.”
Bott raised a hand. “Let’s wait and see if this room has corners, okay?”
He rose from among his crew and considered their landing spot. This new room was a dim, irregular metal box with all sizes of chutes opening from the ceiling, and alarming bumps and ridges along the floor. There were dark obstacles around them, which might hide anything, and anything else could be dumped on them from a chute. He could still smell the enchanting aroma of fireworms. Rumor said His Imperial Worship had the largest fireworms in captivity. Rumor had not said WHERE they were in captivity.
“Help me,” someone whispered.
Bott looked to his crew, a hand still up. The sound seemed to have come from a large pyramid on their left. There was chute above the pyramid; something dropped from it as they watched. Bott hoped it wasn’t a victim of fireworm infestation. Once the fireworms took over the major internal organs, such people were hard to kill, no matter how hard they tried to die.
He took a step forward, using both hands to gesture to his crew to stay back. He was not especially surprised to find them right behind him as he came around the pyramid.
“Help me,” Nubry whispered again, turning toward him as he approached.
She was being drawn backward over a large iron book, which was open to form a wedge, its spine against hers. Small objects were dropping from the chute, landing with pinpoint accuracy in baskets attached to her wrists and ankles. Her face twisted as the weights drew rrach limb farther and farther down.
“I’ll cut them offa ya, Hon,” said Louba, moving forward. The captain shoved an elbow into her stomach to attract her attention.
“Can’t…release…all the…weight at once,” the prisoner gasped. “It’s…mined.”
“Ah.” Nodding to Bott, the green took a step back. “Cap’n’ll tink o’ sumpm.”
“I know,” she whispered. “You…got away…from the HSUs. I didn’t…think…you could.”
Bott pointed to a high metal ridge away to the left. “Check that out,” he ordered. “Tell me if there’s anything behind it. All of you. And wait for my next command.”
The Klamathans, impressed by a new metal in his voice, hurried away. As soon as he saw the blue backside disappear around the ridge, the captain tore out his knife and slashed at the ropes holding the baskets to the prisoner.
“Bott!” Nubry wailed, as the second basket came loose. “Look out!” He leapt for shelter.
The blast helped push him farther. He ducked little lead weights that flew free, mixed with bits of the prisoner.
“Another copy, Cap’n?” Chlorda inquired, as he rejoined the crew.
He nodded. “How could she have known about us escaping the HSUs unless she was watching an Imperial monitor? Let’s go.”
They started forward, but Bassada lingered, wiping blood from the sides of Bott’s face. “Y’know, Cap’n,” she murmured, “Sometimes ‘ey makes prisoners watch ‘em monitors, too.”
Last week in this space, we considered a couple of the cartoon side effects of marriage: fighting about money and carrying groceries. In checking my inventory of fascinating but somehow not yet sold postcards, I find another popular cliché about the married man, especially, the married man of business: the suspicion that his work at the office came with certain benefits not mentioned to wifey at home.
Cartoonists assumed for decades that executives take far too much of a hands-on approach at the office. Of course, every good cliché is based on a LITTLE truth. The story was told where I worked that the CEO’s office was designed with a back door from which a bygone executive could walk into the area where his underlings worked, but which was really there so that if his wife showed up without warning, certain young ladies would have an escape route.
Exaggeration, however, is at the base of much comedy. Cartoonists knew readers would nod and smile at the suggestion that applicants for a secretarial post simply assumed there were duties not mentioned in the job description.
Or that the interview would involve a test of their dedication to the work at hand. (Somebody just snickered; I heard you. I wasn’t going to say “at hand”, but make of it what you will. Once we start down that path, though, no words are safe.)
Is this joke confused, or is the cartoonist playing on our confusion? The executive here has the desk, but his secretary is the one holding it down. (Stop snickering; you’ll wake the other readers.)
And who’s crazy about their position here? Our businessman seems more pleased at how well chair and secretary seem to be made for his satisfaction. (More snickering. Okay. Have you heard the one about a scholarly speaker explaining how 1930s businessmen in Chiago took advantage of their authority? The speaker noted that the president of a major museum “naturally created a position for his mistress.” When the audience laughed, he spluttered a bit and said, “Oh, you know what I mean: he found a place for her on his staff.”)
Anyway, THIS cartoonist makes it clear who is entertained and who is entertaining.
A big part of this cliché, though you have observed it is not universal, is that the businessman taking advantage of that private office is a good deal older than the secretary involved. Neither this, nor the basic premise, are limited to mid-century jokers. These were established at least as early as 1908, when this joke was mailed.
This is one of a very few such gags where the secretary is a little bit older herself. There are other interesting points here as well: the typewriter, the arrangement of the office, her expression, and, most worthy of a whole nother blog, that this is one of several postcards on our theme which refer to “my busy day”. I may have to look that one up and find out if it was a song or a comedy catch phrase in 1909 or thereabouts. (I heard that murmur about “getting busy”; if you thought you could make me snicker, you’re late on the job and your check will be docked.)
And here we look into a deeper, darker secret. All those young men who were taught that hard work and ambition would bring them fame and fortune were actually inspired by another perk of work: if they kept at it, one day THEY would have that private office for their own hanky panky, with or without a back door they could use. (Yeah. Just giving up. You’re not you without snickers.)
“Is this your entire stock of flying carpets, shopkeeper?”
“As far as I know, ma’am.”
“What’s THAT mean?”
“I suspect three or four may have floated to the ceiling over the years, but it’s hard to be sure.”
“I like that. No need to suspect the maid is sweeping dust under them, hey? But you’re charging way too much for all of these. I was looking for something at a reasonable price.”
“I do have a small stock of flying throw rugs, ma’am. Or perhaps you’d be interested I one of these flying handkerchiefs.”
“What use is a flying hanky?”
“They do fly, ma’am. They may be less comfortable for travel, but if ma’am is making a short trip, and has a good grip….”
“Interesting point. What do they look like?”
“I have one right here, ma’am. It comes with this sheet of instructions as well.”
“Instructions? All I need to know is how to make it go. Or were you going to sell me a magic wand for some extravagant price?”
“No, ma’am. The flying hanky is only a penny.”
“A whole penny?”
“Make me an offer.”
“Well, you’re trying for reasonable prices, I guess. Here’s a penny. Now, how do I make it fly?”
“Here is the word of command, ma’am.”
“You mean all I have to do to make it fly is say ‘Presto’?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Hey! Presto! Presto! Shopkeeper!”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“A little help here? Presto? Is there some other word to make it STOP flying?”
“Yes, ma’am. Right down here on the instructions.”
“Well, tell me what it is!”
“But ma’am was uninterested in the instructions. I’d have to charge a gold piece for them now.”
“Well, hurry up! There’s a carpet on your ceiling up here and something keeps reaching out from it and pulling my hair!”
“Ah! I wondered what had become of those flying monkeys.”
The foursome made cautious progress through a broad square room with dark blue walls. They had deciphered the floor tiles so as to proceed without immediate impalement, but this brought Bott no great sense of accomplishment. Anyone who couldn’t figure out not to step on the tiles with holes in them didn’t deserve to make it. A trap this simple meant a more devious one later. Or sooner.
A big green hand swept up behind him to prop him up while the other thumped him on the back. “Gittin’ troo again, Blogsy Cap’n. Tan me toes iffen ‘at’s not halfway!”
Louba swung the thumping hand up to indicate a row of white tiles which did seem to mark the midway point. Bott nodded, making no real comment. Despite her size, the green Klamathan reminded him of young Mijedad Bianco, who had started firing way too soon, leading to the capture of the ship, and had burned for it. Bott would have to watch Louba very closely. In fact, he intended to keep an eye on all three of them, and not for the pleasure of it.
“Iffen ‘ere’s bushes next door, I goes firsts. Us greens I natural outdoorsy types.”
“Yer right,” Bassada told her. “Whenever I looks at yez, I t’ink wide, open spaces. He’d git lost. Ya’d probly rip his clothes besides.”
“I’d set off his grenades, I tell ya,” Louba replied.
The gold sniffed with disdain, but spoiled it by licking her lips. She and Bassada had been busy with an argument on the virtues of multiple climaxes over several hours opposed to holding back for one bone-shattering conclusion. The phrase about bones struck Bott as unnecessarily graphic. But he had apparently won their undying affection by dropping the Nubry doppelganger; a “hard man”, they called him, imbuing the term with at least three meanings.
“Oh, friction burns are a sure sign,” said Chlorda, agreeing with something the blue had said. One golden toe touched the halfway point on the floor.
The blue walls were suddenly green with orange patches; bells hidden behind them struck up a jolly, jingling tune. Everyone froze. Then Bott slid one hand slowly into his pocket.
“Ship,” he murmured, once had had the card to his lips. “What did we just do?”
“Did you know that Elsie had calves named Beauregard and Beulah?”
Bott nodded, not especially surprised. “You’re going to be bilstim useful, aren’t you?”
“Unless you’ve been named Imperial Worship, lummox, that’s all the information you get out of me.”
Sliding the card away again, Bott looked ahead, left, right, and, remembering the dome in the ceiling, up. There was nothing new to see.
“Keep an eye on the spear holes,” he said. Then he stepped into the row of midway tiles.
The bells rose in volume, but nothing else occurred. The company moved on. “I perfers other women’s men,” said Bassada, “No chance a getting’ too personal.” Bott wiped his forehead and was grateful, again, that there wasn’t much room between trapped tiles.
”Ah, refrain yerself.” Louba shook three fingers at the blue. “Youse guys fallalloxed up yer operation at Greenwood Bungaloo so much ya shoon’t need anythin’ else ‘til yez finds shoes ta fit yez.”
Bassada snapped two fingers on each hand, dismissing Greenwood Bungaloo. “Yeah? If yer Cap’n Stillwell han’t’a took his vacation we mighta hadda chance.”
While those two rehashed the story of Greenwood Bungaloo, Chlorda had a chance to ease closer to Bott. Her lower lip and underteeth were sticking out, in a face that clearly said, “You’ll need to work hard to keep up with me.” Bott walked a little faster. Gold Klamathans were partial to what they called the Breadmixer, in which each partner kept their right ankle on their partner’s left shoulder.
“You understand,” he said, “I’m no Captain Tiberius, to have sex with every crew member on a mission.”
He took two more steps before the clearer air told him he was walking alone. He looked back to find three Klamathans staring at him, the gold with crossed eyes. “Well, grab me grin!” cred Louba, punching herself in the chin.
Complete confusion that the captain would expect a say in their debate, or even object, showed in every line of every face as well as every line that showed of their bodies. Then the green slapped one massive buttock. “Aw, Cap’n Bottsy’s joshin’!”
“It must be a jest,” Chlorda breathed at him, leaning in. “I’ve had no one but these two for weeks. And they smell funny.”
The b;ue took two steps toward them. “”Yez gots to unnerstan’. “All ‘at keeps us goin’ is tings we finds ta play wit’ along the way. A jumprope, like stretchnose here gots, a little box of Itteh Ga Sugar, earrings what….” She cast her eyes not, not at all demurely. “Dangle.”
Louba’s big right hand was rubbing the captain’s shoulder. “Seem when ya never been off yer home planet….”
This shocked Bott more than anything they’d said during the previous discussion. “You’ve never….”
Bassada and Louba, he learned, had spent their whole lives at home, while Chlorda had left Klamath only twice, on school field trips. Bott’s shock, which was obvious, was immediately taken up by his crew.
“’At’s what yez needs in a cap’n!” Bassada told the others. “A man wit’ experience!”
“It’s what I need in a man,” Chlorda agreed. “A captain with experience!”
Bott fretted that his resistance was weakening. What they expected would weaken him further, but he had missed working with a crew. This might be the price he had to pay.
He summoned his strength to object again. “We know the Emperor’s watching,” he said, easing his shoulders from under Luba’s arm. “Why put on a show?”
Chlorda stared at him. Bassada and Louba broke into booming guffaws. Before Bott could inquire after the joke, guffaws gave way to a cry of “Tripplepletz!”
Bott swung around to look. The tiles of the halfway line had disappeared behind them. Coming up a ramp from where the tiles had been were short, square metal boxes on low wheels. Turning again, to order his crew to move a little faster, he found them three rows ahead of him, daintily dancing around the tiles with spearholes.
All but impossible to knock over or turn from their courses, Hall Security Units held attachments capable of inflicting any one of ninety-eight highly painful and potentially crippling injuries on anything that triggered their ten foot freeze frames. And that was only standard Imperial issue: the Emperor’s special game versions would have more functions and a larger area of capture. Bott spent only a fraction of a second estimating how far apart the units were from each other before turning to pursue his crew.
The HSUs did not worry about s[earholes; the stabbing of the fine points didn’t even budge them as they trundled forward. The spearholes were becoming more numerous, forcing Chlorda, in the lead, to look around for safe tiles. Their foe would catch up long before they reached the end of the room. Bott reached into his satchel, loosed a grenade, and leapt after Bassada as he made a practiced toss over one shoulder.
This had not escaped the notice of his crew. Louba slowed to check behind her. “Nothin’,” she said.
Bott shrugged. “They can’t all….”
With a loud “PLOOM”, what might have been steam billowed from the grenade. Bott wrinkled his nose. A gas grenade would aid the HSUs more than the fugitives.
The steam did not disperse. The chunky robots did not advance through it. As the steam went white, crunching signs indicated that the HSUs had reached the barrier, and found it sufficient.
Louba set her hands on her hips and shook her head in admiration. “Well, bra me with barb wire an’ call me dainty!”
“Let’s go!” Admiring the bumpy wall himself, Bott realized it wasn’t big enough to block the entire passage. As he turned his head, he saw the first of the HSUs come into view.
“Flallop!” cried Chlorda, who had reached the bronze door tucked among many tiles with spearholes. She had pulled this to one side, waving the rest toward the safe tiles and the threshold, only to see a line of HSUs coming straight at them. Bott was reaching into the grenade satchel again when he spotted Bott getting ready to grab a grenade and throw it at them.
The Klamathans understood this the same moment he did, and they all plunged into the mirrored corridor. Chlorda had to jump: the door had opened against her and clicked into the wall. They could not shut off pursuit that way: this would be a test of speed. Twelve, twenty-four, and then countless fugitives found a way among the mirrors as the HSUs rolled toward the door, hampered not a bit by the excessively large number of spears.
To their left, down one narrow byway, waited five dull silver doors, one of which was likely to be real. A brown door waited in a cluster of bronze doors at the far end of the tunnel of mirrors, down a short flight of stairs.
“Brown door!” Bott sped toward it, bouncing now and again from himself in the mirrors, without checking to see if the others were following orders. He could nearly feel the throbbing of those freeze frames, which could paralyze a captive without dulling the ability to fee pain.
Leaping down the stairs, he put a hand to the brown door and looked back to find his crew bouncing after him, some more than others. He nodded, his back to the door. The HSUs came on.
There was a reason HSUs were not used outdoors. Unable to deal with terrain that wasn’t flat, they stumbled at the first step. A loud metal avalanche followed the Klamathans, gradually slowing as the HSUs bumped into each other, jabbing metal arms out just as the freeze frames took effect.
“Nice work Bottsy Cap’m<” said Louba, rubbing a hip against her captain. “Now what? Does we jump back over for ‘at silver door or use what we got?”
Bott doubted his ability to jump past all those freeze frames, but the green Klamathan had a good idea. It would be just like Imperial designers…. Looking up, he found a metal sign above the brown door. From here, he couldn’t tell if there was one above the many silver doors he could now see among the mirrors. The sign here said, ‘THIS EXIST OPENS INTO A CHAMBER OF FLAMING HORROR”.
All Bott could read of this, however, was the word Nubry had taught him “EXIT”.
“This way,” he said, pulling at the broad, arrow-shaped handle.
They studied, but did not at first enter, the broad green landscape. Not far from them waited a vast ice-blue lake, little white flashes here and there advertising an availability of fish.
“Lodeon doesn’t look like this, does it?” All Bott could remember from travel ads was yellow mountains and big buildings.
“Purdy nice, though.” Louba took a couple of steps into the grass. “If anybody was to want ta stop an’…rest.”
She looked over one shoulder, lowering long lashes as her eyes swept up and down the captain. Bott felt four other eyes on him, and took six steps past the green Klamathan. “Better move on as fast as we can.” His voice was a little louder than it needed to be. “This has to be a trap.”
“Weather seems about right, Captain.” Chlorda licked a finger to hold it up to test the breeze. She spent half a second longer than she really needed to on that finger, in Bott’s opinion.
“Thinkin’ I could struggle along layin’ round here a few days.” Louba shook out her hair which, since it was soaked with sweat, was redolent of fillberry pie. Bott’s stomach rumbled. It seemed a long while since he’d eaten?
“Too nice fer me.” Bassada stepped up and ran a finger of her own along the green Klamathan’s back. “Why’d his Imperial Wort’less make sumpm fer funsies? Gotta be sumpm dangersome to it.”
“Don’t listen to her, Bottsy Cap’n. She gots feets in her pajammers!”
Bott swung a hand along the line of the horizon. “There’s too much of it. The trap could be waiting anywhere. The lake. The trees….”
“Closer than that, I do suppose.” The gold Kalamathan moved up to a line of shrubbery and, raising one leg straight out, parted the top branches to look between them. This revealed a steaming wooden tub piled high with bubbles.
“Me fer ‘at!” cried Bassada, leaping forward.
“I saw it first!” Chlorda plunged forward, but was just too far away for her foot to miss the rim.
Bott jammed a hand into one of his pockets, found a gear he’d stowed there, and let it fly. It passed just above the leg covered with golden down and dug a well through the shimmering bubbles. This allowed a passage for a fountain of flames in response.
“I enjoy a hot bath, but oh my!” said Chlorda, returning to hug her captain.
“Getting’ kinda tired of ‘at Emperor,” growled Bassada.
“Touch nothing,” Bott ordered. “We need to find a door somewhere. Maybe….”
“Lala!” Chlorda raised an arm.
Louba was halfway up a tree trunk, reaching for something that hung from a branch. “Come help us find the door!” the gold shouted.
“Yer not cap’n today, lumplegs,” Louba replied. “Call back tomorra.”
“It’s her weakness, Captain,” Chlorda told him, as they spotted what Louba was reaching for. “Red silk panties with tassels. I suppose if we just let her die there’ll be more of everything…for everybody.” She glanced at the captain and then strode toward the tree.
Bott’s eyebrows slid down as he hurried after her, and his upper teeth jabbed into his underlip. Captain Huti had been brought to a sticky end by just such a crew. Unsuccessful pirate crews lacked cohesiveness, pursuing whatever seemed best at the moment, regardless of plan.
Six hands were reaching for green ankles as green fingertips brushed the underwear in the tree. Yowling as it burst into flame, a green fist knocked the flaming lingerie away from the tree. It flew too far, hitting the surface of the lake. The entire lake burst into flame and shot into the air. The hissing did not stop as it all came back down, and was not the result of flame hitting water.
As you no doubt recall, we spent our last thrilling episode discussing how postcard cartoonists addressed the age-old question of how husbands and wives handled their mutual finances. Here is another expression of a perennial joke, as mentioned in that essay. (And, again, if you decide to hunt through the world for other examples so as to get your Ph.D. with a dissertation comparing the different expenses listed in these budgets, kindly mention this column. And mention this column kindly.)
But though we mentioned a few side issues which turned into their own comic traditions, like the price of hats, there were other branches of this rabbit hole we did not explore.
But there is one cliché which attracted a number of postcard cartoonists, even as to this day it can be found in the adventures of, say, Dagwood, or Leroy Lockhorn. And that is the poor carrying home all the things his wife has bought.
The situation is filled with possibilities: one could do a Bingo game of different applications of the gag, from the lady who kindly removes one box from the stack her husband is carrying so he can see where he’s walking to the lady who gets home only to find she is accompanied by a stranger whose wife accidentally swapped with her because the piles of purchases were so high neither could tell which man was behind them. When it comes to the comic strip of the twenty-first century, these variations are a Christmas tradition in spite of those who do their shopping on the Interwebs. But in the golden age of postcards, one theme reigned supreme.
It ain’t subtle. We are given to understand that any man might let his wife get away with buying a lot. But only a truly submissive, downtrodden male would then allow himself to be used as a beast of burden to haul it all home.
Real men, we are given to understand, don’t go shopping with their wives. They are working in an office, bawling out underlings about the budget, and come home to faint dead away when presented with the bills. (Had they gotten a little mor exercise carrying hat boxes and such, they might have averted that fate, but the cartoonists never mention THAT.)
Far and few were the cartoonists who expressed doubts about whether a husband could be trusted to do any shopping without escort.
And it took a really big man, like cartoonist Tom Browne, to show us the results when a bachelor went to the store. The joke is on the poor dub shown here, who thinks having a wife would save him from all this. Obviously, he hasn’t been shopping in the postcard rack.
Blogsy Babbles 