"Let her alone, Bab. Listen! She may improvise more," she said. "Now she's beginning to sweep, and that usually inspires her."
Phyllis's broom flew, and Jessamy and Bab waited developments. Evidently Truce had dismounted, and was ready for the frolic sweeping always meant to him, for they heard Phyllis laugh, and cry: "Look out, Truchi-ki! How do you expect me to sweep if you hold my broom? I'll spank you, kitten; you've never had one tiny, least spanking in all your life." Phyllis always talked nonsense to Truce, whose name had developed through an Italian pronunciation of Truce, Truchi, into the Japanese-sounding Truchi-ki, which Phyllis said meant, "Trucie, ki-tten," but which Jessamy more correctly defined as meaning nonsensical affection. Luckily for them, however, all the Wyndhams loved nonsense.
To prove it, Phyllis began to sing once more, a long jumble of nonsense in one rhyme:
"Trouble found me where I sat,
But I didn't care for that,
Only learned my lesson pat.
Then I took a heavy bat,
And I hit old Trouble—spat!
And I gave him tit for tat.
Last, I drowned him in a vat.
Now I've learned to make a hat,
Wash a dish and sweep a mat,
And I think I'm getting fat
In this blessed little flat,
With my snowy Trucie-cat—
I'm so very, very happy that I don't know where I'm at!"
"'LOOK OUT, TRUCHI-KI; YOU'LL FALL!' PHYLLIS SAID."