How a man had ten daughters: the first one's age reckoned
Three-fourths of eight-ninths of nine-tenths of the second;
Numbers 3, 4, and 5, also 6, 7, and 8,
Used also in problems their ages to state;
The other two, being quite chickens, in fact,
Dropped ciphering, and stated their ages exact.
(If you went through that long computation again,
You'd find those girls just the same age they were then.)
Then the triangles, rectangles, quadrangles too,
And other sad wrangles we had to go through;