"Try it."

"But I might kill you!"

"That's the point."

"Nevertheless," she persisted, "I could if I wanted to."

"No matter how you put it, it's all the same—you can't want to."

"No, but suppose I were bound to keep you from doing something—like serving papers, for instance."

His legs were crossed under him and he was tossing bits of the gravel under his hand: "You'd have a better show to do that if you went at it in another way."

"What way?"

"Well—by asking me not to serve them, for instance."

"Do you mean to say if I asked you not to serve papers you wouldn't do it?" She eyed him with simulated indignation.