TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 7 



us did us well, and withstood prodigious wear and 

 tear. 



The night before our departure we had a " Good- 

 bye " dinner and, as a great treat, were taken to a 

 music-hall. Of course it was not my first visit, but 

 really, if I have any say in the matter again, it will be 

 the last. Some genius — a man, of course — says, some- 

 where or other, women have no sense of humour — I 

 wonder if he ever saw a crowd of holiday-making 

 trippers exchanging hats — and I am willing to concede 

 he must be right. I watched that show unmoved the 

 while the vast audience rocked with laughter. 



The piece-de-resistance of the evening was provided 

 by a " comic " singer, got up like a very-much-the- 

 worse-for-wear curate, who sang to us about a girl 

 with whom he had once been in love. Matters 

 apparently went smoothly enough until one fateful 

 day he discovered his inamorata's nose was false, and, 

 what seemed to trouble him more than all, was stuck 

 on with cement. It came off at some awkward 

 moment. This was meant to be funny. If such an 

 uncommon thing happened that a woman had no nose, 

 and more uncommon still, got so good an imitation as 

 to deceive him as to its genuineness in the first place, 

 it would not be affixed with cement. But allowing 

 such improbabilities to pass in the sacred cause of 

 providing amusement, surely the woman's point of 

 view would give us pause. It would be so awful for 

 her in every way that it would quite swamp any 

 discomfort the man would have to undergo. I 

 felt far more inclined to cry than laugh, and the 



