Some person in authority, I don’t know who, very likely the Astronomer Royal,
Has decided that, although for such a beastly month as February, twenty-eight days as a rule are plenty,
One year in every four his days shall be reckoned as nine and-twenty.
Through some singular coincidence — I shouldn’t be surprised if it were owing to the agency of an ill-natured fairy–
You [Fredric] are the victim of this clumsy arrangement, having been born in leap-year, on the twenty-ninth of February;
And so, by a simple arithmetical process, you’ll easily discover,
That though you’ve lived twenty-one years, yet, if we go by birthdays, you’re only five and a little bit over! RUTH and KING:
- Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
- Ho! ho! ho! ho!
FREDERIC:
- Dear me!
- Let’s see! (counting on fingers)
- Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
FREDERIC:
- (more amused than any) How quaint the ways of Paradox!
- At common sense she gaily mocks!
- Though counting in the usual way,
- Years twenty-one I’ve been alive,
- Yet, reck’ning by my natal day,
- Yet, reck’ning by my natal day,
- I am a little boy of five!
RUTH and KING:
- He is a little boy of five!
- Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
ALL:
- A paradox, a paradox,
- A most ingenious paradox!
- Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
- A paradox,
- Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
- A curious paradox,
- Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!
- A most ingenious paradox!
