"I can't give her up! I can't! I love her!" cried Bobo, flinging himself down among the pillows.
"Take my word for it," said Jack earnestly, "she's no good!"
"You're wrong! You're wrong!"
Jack began to lose patience. "Well, if you won't listen to reason you'll have to take an order. Remember our agreement. You've got to give her up. This is an order, now."
"I can't! I can't!" moaned Bobo.
As usual in the display of Bobo's emotions, there was something both ludicrous and pathetic in the sight of the fat tousled head threshing the pillows. Jack grinned and said:
"Oh, go to sleep again. When you get up, have a bang-up breakfast and you'll feel better. I'll look in on you at lunch time."
Jack's first visit upon setting out from the hotel was to the offices of the Eureka Protective Association, at the address on Forty-Second street given on their representative's card.
He found the Association installed in an ordinary suite, neither grandly nor shabbily furnished, but entirely businesslike. The customary staff of a small office was visible at work: bookkeeper, stenographer and office-boy. In fact to the eye it was a wholly conventional establishment; open, aboveboard and prosperous.
Upon asking for the manager Jack was shown to an inner room, where a man of about thirty-five with a mop of lank, blonde hair hanging on his forehead, and what is known as an open countenance, was seated at a desk trimming his nails in unashamed idleness. It appeared that this was Mr. Anderson.