As if to prove his words, a gong suddenly sounded at their door and
in walked a fat little man clothed all in white, including a white
apron and white cap. His face was round and jolly, and he had a big
mustache that curled up at the ends.

"Well, well!" said the little man, spreading out his legs and
putting his hands on his hips as he stood looking at them. "Of all
the queer things in the sea, you're the queerest! Mermaids, eh?"

"Don't bunch us that way!" protested Cap'n Bill.

"You are quite wrong," said Trot. "I'm a--a girl."

"With a fish's tail?" he asked, laughing at her.

"That's only just for a while," she said, "while I'm in the water,
you know. When I'm at home on the land I walk just as you do, an' so
does Cap'n Bill."

"But we haven't any gills," remarked the Cap'n, looking closely at
the little man's throat, "so I take it we're not as fishy as some
others."

"If you mean me, I must admit you are right," said the little man,
twisting his mustache. "I'm as near a fish as a man can be. But you
see, Cap'n, without the gills that make me a fish, I could not live
under water."

"When it comes to that, you've no business to live under water,"