“Flip-flop, flippity-floppity-flub” sounded in progression across the living-room floor.
The two fiancées looked at each other in bewilderment.
“What on earth!” said Maud Raines.
Again the voice was uplifted, in familiar melody, gemmed with words less familiar:
“Ru m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tu m-tiddle,
I have rolled ten pounds from off my middle.
By rolling on the floor, (Flip! Flop!)
As I told you before,
Behind!
Behind!
Before!” (Floppity-flop!)
“I do believe she’s doing it,” whispered Helen in awed accents.
The voice, with its strange accompaniments, resumed:
“Ru m-tu m-tu m-tum-tu m-tu m-tiddle,
I’ll roll twenty pounds from off my middle.
I have done it before. (Floppity-flop! Thump!)
I can do it some more!” (Whoof!)
By this time Maud’s key, silently inserted in the spring lock, had made connections. She threw the door open. Darcy, giving an imitation of a steam roller in full career toward the two entrants, was startled into a cry. She came to her feet with a bound, without pausing to touch so much as a finger to the floor, a detail which escaped the protruding eyes of her flatmates, and stood facing them flushed and defiant.
“Well!” said Maud Raines.