"Yes, isn't it lovely?" Jenny replied, giving two rapid little
nods. "But we had such awful thunderstorms last week."

Parallel straight lines, Denis reflected, meet only at infinity.
He might talk for ever of care-charmer sleep and she of
meteorology till the end of time. Did one ever establish contact
with anyone? We are all parallel straight lines. Jenny was only
a little more parallel than most.

"They are very alarming, these thunderstorms," he said, helping
himself to porridge. "Don't you think so? Or are you above
being frightened?"

"No. I always go to bed in a storm. One is so much safer lying
down."

"Why?"

"Because," said Jenny, making a descriptive gesture, "because
lightning goes downwards and not flat ways. When you're lying
down you're out of the current."

"That's very ingenious."

"It's true."

There was a silence. Denis finished his porridge and helped
himself to bacon. For lack of anything better to say, and
because Mr. Scogan's absurd phrase was for some reason running in