Uncle Loveday looked at me oddly for a moment, and then repeated—
"Yes, yes, we'll have him safe enough. Joe Roscorla must have given the alarm before he had time to go far. And to think," he added, throwing up his hand, "that I talked to the villain only yesterday morning as though he were some unfortunate victim of the sea!"
I am sure that my uncle was regretting the vast deal of very fine language he had wasted: and, indeed, he had seldom more nobly risen to an occasion.
"Pearls, pearls before swine! Swine did I say? Snakes, if it's not an insult to a snake to give its name to such as Colliver. What did you say, Jasper?"
"We'll have him."
"Jasper, my boy," said he, scanning me for a second time oddly, "maybe you'll be better in bed. Try to sleep again, my poor lad— what do you think?"
"I think," I answered, "that we have not yet looked at the clasp."
"My dear boy, you're right: you're right again. Let us look at it."
The piece of metal resembled, as I have said, the half of a waist-buckle, having a socket but no corresponding hook. In shape it was slightly oblong, being about 2 inches by one and a half inches. It glittered brightly in the candle's ray as Uncle Loveday polished it with his handkerchief, readjusted his spectacles, and bent over it.
At the end of a minute he looked up, and said—