64 TWO DIANAS IN SOMALILAND 



Clarence came to see me often. His occupation was 

 gone. Cecily did not leave meat all at first. I believe 

 our good fellow wondered if we should ever require 

 him to hunt again. He did not know the proverb, 

 "Once bitten, twice shy," but you could see he felt it. 



One evening, when I was convalescent, Clarence 

 brought one of the men to us with inquiries as to the 

 best way to cure him. 



" What is the matter ? " was naturally the first ques- 

 tion, as we were not the human Homoceas our men 

 seemed to take us for. 



Our servant had been chewing — must have been — a 

 piece of thorn, and a particularly spiky insidious bit 

 had stuck itself well in the back of his throat, near the 

 left tonsil. It would seem an easy enough thing to pull 

 out, but it was the most difficult of operations. We could 

 not make any very prolonged attempt at dislodgment 

 because every time we tried to touch the bit of thorn 

 the man either shut his mouth with a snap and bit us, 

 or pretended he must be sick forthwith. It was very 

 laughable, but a little worrying. We tried nippers, a 

 vast pair, that filled the mouth to overflowing and hid 

 the offending thorn from sight, We tried blunt 

 scissors, which Cecily said would not cut because they 

 could not, and might be relied on to act the part of 

 nippers. Of course they did cut, when they weren't 

 needed to, the roof of the patient's mouth, and matters 

 grew worse than ever. The light was wholly insuffi- 

 cient, and we could hardly see at all. The candle 

 lamp never shone in the right direction, and we 

 laughed so — the two Somalis were in such deadly 



