_King._ We knew your taste for curious quips, For cranks and contradictions queer, And with the laughter on our lips, We wished you had been there to hear. We said, “If we could tell it him, How Frederic would the joke enjoy,” And so we’ve risked both life and limb To tell it to our boy. _Fred._ (_interested_). That paradox? That paradox! _King and Ruth_ (_laughing_). That most ingenious paradox! We’ve quips and quibbles heard in flocks, But none to beat that paradox! Ha, ha, ha, ha! ho, ho, ho, ho! CHANT.--KING. For some ridiculous reason, to which, however, I’ve no desire to be disloyal, 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 general 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 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._ Ha! ha! ha! ha! _King._ Ho! ho! ho! ho! _Fred._ Dear me! Let’s see! (_Counting on fingers._) Yes, yes; with yours my figures do agree! _All._ Ha, ha, ha, ha! Ho, ho, ho, ho! (_FREDERIC more amused than any._) _Fred._ 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, reckoning by my natal day, I am a little boy of five! _All._ He is a little boy of five. Ha, ha! At common sense she gaily mocks; So quaint a way is paradox. _All._ Ha, ha, ha, ha! _King._ Ho, ho, ho, ho! _Ruth._ Ha, ha, ha, ha! _Fred._ Ha, ha, ha, ha! _All._ Ho, ho, ho, ho! [_RUTH and KING throw themselves back on seats, exhausted with laughter._] _Fred._ Upon my word, this is most curious--most absurdly whimsical. Five and a quarter! No one would think it to look at me. _Ruth._ You are glad now, I’ll be bound, that you spared us. You would never have forgiven yourself when you discovered that you had killed _two of your comrades_.