She might as well fall in love with a jack-in-the-box. Fall in love? She detected a faster heart-beat, a suggestion of creeping gooseflesh. Fall in love? Jasmine would have liked to lecture her own self now; she felt as censorious of her involuntary self as Aunt May. But it was no fun to lecture one's involuntary self unless it were done <i>viva voce</i>, and if she did that the woman on the other side of the carriage, who ever since Waterloo had been fecklessly trying to separate the green gooseberries in her string bag from the cracknel biscuits and French beans, might be alarmed. But how could she have ... of course it wasn't really his fault about the stick; in fact, he probably considered himself badly treated in the matter. But he must not come down to Silchester and create another scene there. Besides, what right or reason had she to let him come down there? He had never given her the slightest justification for supposing that he was anything more than mildly interested in her. To be sure, he had insisted that he had written to her half a dozen times. But had he? The proper course of action for herself, the dignified and in the circumstances the easiest attitude for her to adopt, was one of kindly discouragement. Yes, she would write to him from the Deanery and tell him plainly that she hoped he would not think of coming down to visit her there. She had just reached this decision when the train steamed into Silchester station. Jasmine was waiting on the platform in the expectation of being presently accosted by any one of the several dowdy women round her when both her arms were roughly grabbed and she found herself apparently in the custody of two boy scouts. "I say, are you Cousin Jasmine?" asked the smaller of the two in a squeaky voice. Simple and obvious though the question seemed, it had an extraordinary effect on the other boy, who instantly let go of her arm in order to engage in what to Jasmine's alarmed vision looked to be a life-and-death struggle with his companion, which did not end until the smaller boy had cried in his squeaky voice 'Pax, Edred,' several times. Edred, however, was for prolonging the agonies of the requested armistice by twisting his brother's arm--for the ferocity with which they had fought was surely a sign that they were as intimately related--and making numerous conditions before he agreed to grant a cessation of hostilities. "Will you swear not to chisel again if I let go your arm?" "Yes, I swear." "Will you swear not to be a rotten little chiseller, and when I say 'bags I asking' next time not go and ask yourself straight off?" "Yes, I swear. Oh, shut up, Edred. You're hurting my arm most frightfully. You are a dirty cad!" "What did you call me?" Edred fiercely enquired with a repetition of the torture. "I said you were a frightfully decent chap. Ouch! You devil! The decentest chap in all the world." "Well, kneel down and lick my boot," Edred commanded loftily, "and you can have pax."