ook the proffered hand coldly, paused a moment, and then
wrung it in silence, and hurried away home.

"Have I played my ace ill after all?" said Tom, sitting down to
consider. "As for whether I should have played it all, that's no
business of mine now. Madam Might-have-been may see to that. But did
I play ill? for if I did, I may try a new lead yet. Ought I to have
twitted him about his wife? If he's venomous, it may only make matters
worse; and still worse if he be suspicious. I don't think he was
either in old times; but vanity will make a man so, and it may have
made him. Well, I must only ingratiate myself all the more with her;
and find out, too, whether she has his secret as well as I. What I am
most afraid of is my having told him plainly that he was in my power;
it's apt to make sprats of his size flounce desperately, in the mere
hope of proving themselves whales after all, if it's only to their
miserable selves. Never mind; he can't break my tackle; and besides,
that gripe of the hand seemed to indicate that the poor wretch was
beat, and thought himself let off easily--as indeed he is. We'll hope
so. Now, zoophytes, for another turn with you!"

To tell the truth, however, Tom is looking for more than zoophytes,
and has been doing so at every dead low tide since he was wrecked. He
has heard nothing yet of his belt. The notes have not been presented
at the London bank; nobody in the village has been spending more money
than usual; for cunning Tom has contrived already to know how many
pints of ale every man of whom he has the least doubt has drunk.
Perhaps, after all, the belt may have been torn off in the life
struggle; it may have been for a moment in Grace's hands, and then
have been swept into the sea. What more likely? And what more likely,
in that case, that, sinking by its weight, it is wedged away in some
cranny of the rocks?

So spring-tide after spring-tide Tom searches, and all the more
carefully because others are searching too, for waifs and strays from
the wreck. Sad relics of mortality he finds at times, as others do:
once, even, a dressing-case, full of rings and pins and chains, which
belonged, he fancied, to a gay young bride with whom he had waltzed
many a time on deck, as they slipped along before the soft trade-wind:
but no belt. He sent the dressing-case to the Lloyd's underwriters,
and searched on: but in vain. Neither could he find that any one else
had forestalled him; and that very af