Panel #2 implies that Nancy gave the kid a quarter, now she has the pen and tests it ”under water.”
In panel #3, Nancy complains about the nonfunctioning of the pen under water and the kid demonstrates its power by creating some verbal graffiti with the pen on a brick wall in panel #4.
Was Ernie addressing Nancy’s naïveté about tricks with language?
I would enjoy reading all the Bushmiller strips that involve a toilet plunger.
I’m reading this strip as one suggesting that drinking too much water before bedtime can lead to a visit with a toilet; ‘plunge’ being a crude metaphor in the strip today.
Also reading a level where having a toilet plunger stick to a ceiling works for the plunger gag but I have a quite vague memory of wondering if a toilet plunger could get stuck to a ceiling as Ernie Bushmiller presents the event in a strip.
I’m old enough to remember the Weekend Newspapers of my time.
In those days — later 1950s, 1960s and 1970s and 80’s — panels in a Bushmiller weekend strip were in colour and some panels were in the six-inch wide & four inches high in scale.
Those were a weekend special treat for those old enough to read and enjoy.
Most of the colour strips I see in a newspaper today would require readers/viewers to be thrilled with panels about 3/4” of an inch high.
A ghastly, disrespectful treament of a wonderul art form by the news publishing industry, failing to recognize itself as a ‘medium’.
On the other hand, I do appreciate Gocomics and the other www sites that present the artform respectfully.
As for the remainder of the www and the internet, I can only regard that stuff as a global crime scene.
In strip #3, a Baseball ”CAP” Hovers in panel #3.