“They don’t know, I guess.  But mermaids jes’ natcherly has to be like that, or they wouldn’t be mermaids.”

She thought this over.  “Somebody must have lived, Cap’n Bill,” she declared positively.  “Other fairies have been seen by mortals; why not mermaids?”

“P’raps they have, Trot, p’raps they have,” he answered musingly.  “I’m tellin’ you as it was told to me, but I never stopped to inquire into the matter so close before.  Seems like folks wouldn’t know so much about mermaids if they hadn’t seen ’em; an’ yet accordin’ to all accounts the victim is bound to get drownded.”

“P’raps,” suggested Trot softly, “someone found a fotygraph of one of ’em.”

“That might o’ been, Trot, that might o’ been,” answered Cap’n Bill.

A nice man was Cap’n Bill, and Trot knew he always liked to explain everything so she could fully understand it.  The aged sailor was not a very tall man, and some people might have called him chubby, or even fat.  He wore a blue sailor shirt with white anchors worked on the corners of the broad, square collar, and his blue trousers were very wide at the bottom.  He always wore one trouser leg over his wooden limb and sometimes it would flutter in the wind like a flag because it was so wide and the wooden leg so slender.  His rough kersey coat was a pea-jacket and came down to his waistline.  In the big pockets of his jacket he kept a wonderful jackknife, and his pipe and tobacco, and many bits of string, and matches and keys and lots of other things.  Whenever Cap’n Bill thrust a chubby hand into one of his pockets, Trot watched him with breathless interest, for she never knew what he was going to pull out.

The old sailor’s face was brown as a berry.  He had a fringe of hair around the back of his head and a fringe of whisker around the edge of his face, running from ear to ear and underneath his chin.  His eyes were light blue and kind in expression.  His nose was big and broad, and his few teeth were not strong enough to crack nuts with.

Trot liked Cap’n Bill and had a great deal of confidence in his wisdom, and a great admiration for his ability to make tops and whistles and toys with that marvelous jackknife of his.  In the village were many boys and girls of her own age, but she never had as much fun playing with them as she had wandering by the sea accompanied by the old sailor and listening to his fascinating stories.

She knew all about the Flying Dutchman, and Davy Jones’ Locker, and Captain Kidd, and how to harpoon a whale or dodge an iceberg or lasso a seal.  Cap’n Bill had been everywhere in the world, almost, on his many voyages.  He had been wrecked on desert islands like Robinson Crusoe and been attacked by cannibals, and had a host of other exciting adventures.  So he was a delightful comrade for the little girl, and whatever Cap’n Bill knew Trot was sure to know in time.

“How do the mermaids live?” she asked.  “Are they in caves, or just in the water like fishes, or how?”