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Rh glancing from the text, he found that she had sunk into a profound and peaceful slumber.

It was a chance he had been waiting for all day. He was rather tired of Nora, with her innocence and her macaroons, her tarantella and her taradiddles, her forgery and her fancy dress, and he had the cheque by him in readiness; so he stole on tiptoe to the mantelpiece, slipped the paper under the clock, and was just in time to sink back into his easy-chair, before it turned out to be one of the revolving-seats in the dining-saloon on the Boomerang.

There was a tumbler of whisky-and-seltzer on the table in front of him, and he was sitting in close confabulation with his former acquaintance, Mr. Perkins, the Bank Manager.

"That's precisely what I don't know, sir, and what I'm determined to find out!" were the first words he heard from the latter gentleman, who looked flushed and angry. "But it's a scandalous thing, isn't it?"

"Very," said Peter, rather bored and deeply disappointed; for the Manager was but an indifferent substitute for the companion he had been counting upon. "Oh, very!"