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Cartoon Confusion Due to Creepy Ending

Otto Soglow is confusing us again, this time in the September 8, 1928 issue of The New Yorker (click for a full-size image).

I'm not stupid; I assume the joke is that the diver left his suit to join the mermaid underwater. But does it make sense that my first thought was that she'd EATEN him? And does it seem strange that I still halfway believe that this was Soglow's intention?

Cartoon Confusion Due to Midget Punchline

New Yorker cartoons are infamously opaque, but they weren't much so during the 1920s. The multi-panel vignettes by Otto Soglow were particularly easy to "get," usually a simple, surreal, but obvious joke stretched out to six or nine panels.

But this one confuses me and freaks me out. Sure I understand what is happening in each panel, but there's a disconnect between "what appears to be happening" and "what it all means." Part of this confusion comes from my desire to NOT see it as a cheap midget-with-a-cigar-sex-gag, because New Yorker cartoons -- and Soglow's in particular -- just weren't LIKE that at the time.

It says something about the vapidity of the '20s magazine that this cartoon is the most thought-provoking thing I've seen so far.

Incidentally, you may remember Otto Soglow for what he eventually became famous for: the 1930s "Little King" comics.