CHAPTER 1.
TROT AND CAP'N BILL "Nobody," said Cap'n Bill solemnly, "ever sawr a mermaid an' lived to tell the tale." "Why not ?" asked Trot, looking earnestly up into the old sailor's face.
They were seated on a bench built around a giant acacia tree that grew just at the edge of the bluff.

Below them rolled the blue waves of the great Pacific.

A little way behind them was the house, a neat frame cottage painted white and surrounded by huge eucalyptus and pepper trees.

Still farther behind that--a quarter of a mile distant but built upon a bend of the coast--was the village, overlooking a pretty bay.
Cap'n Bill and Trot came often to this tree to sit and watch the ocean below them.

The sailor man had one "meat leg" and one "hickory leg," and he often said the wooden one was the best of the two.