The first thing was to find the cheque-book, which did not take him long; though when he had found it, something made him pause before filling up a cheque. What if he had been made a fool of--if the Anglo-Australian Joint Stock Time Bank Limited never existed, or had suspended payment? But that was easily settled by presenting a cheque. Why should he not, just by way of experiment? His balance was intact as yet; he was never likely to need a little ready time more than he did just then. He would draw the minimum amount, fifteen minutes, and see how the system worked.
So, although he had little real confidence that anything would happen at all, he drew a cheque, and slipped it behind the frivolous and rather incorrect little ormolu clock upon his chimneypiece.
The result was instantaneous, and altogether beyond his expectations! The four walls of his room assumed the transparency of gauze for a second, before fading entirely away; the olive fog changed to translucent blue; there was a briny breath in the air, and he himself was leaning upon the rail at the forward end of the hurricane-deck of the _Boomerang_, which was riding with a slow and stately rise and fall over the heaving swell.
That was surprising enough; but more surprising still was the discovery that he was apparently engaged in close and confidential conversation with a lovely person in whom he distinctly recognised Miss Tyrrell.
"Yes, I forgive you, Mr. Tourmalin," she was saying, with an evident effort to suppress a certain agitation; "but indeed, _indeed_, you must never speak to me like that again!"
Now, as Peter was certainly not conscious of ever having spoken to her at all in his life, this was naturally a startling and even embarrassing beginning.
But he had presence of mind enough to take in the position of affairs, and adapt himself to them. This was one of the quarters of an hour he _would_ have had, and it was clear that in some portion or other of his spare time he would have made Miss Tyrrell's acquaintance in some way. Of course, he ought to have been paid that particular time first; but he could easily see from her manner, and the almost tender friendliness which shone in her moistened eyes, that at this period they had advanced considerably beyond mere acquaintanceship. There had been some little mistake probably; the cheques had been wrongly numbered perhaps, or else they were honoured without regard to chronological sequence, which was most confusing.