Puck's Christmas Tree

A double-page spread built around a candlelit tree, hung with drums, horns, and paper chains. Puck perches on a stepladder at center, offering a small crown to a fashionably dressed young woman who stretches to reach it. Around the branches, the magazine's stock characters collect their satirical presents: the reckless motorist gets a bottle of horse liniment, the henpecked husband two tickets to The Taming of the Shrew, an Irishman a box of English soldiers. Samuel Ehrhart packs dozens of figures into one deep interior without losing any of them, each transaction its own small cartoon. The caption reads A Little Something for Each of His Characters. This is less a Christmas scene than an editorial roll call, the year's cast lined up for a last, pointed joke.