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!