n 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/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!, etc.

(RUTH and KING throw themselves back on seats, exhausted with
laughter)

FREDERIC: 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.
FREDERIC: My comrades?
KING: (rises) I'm afraid you don't appreciate the delicacy
of your position: You were apprenticed to us--
FREDERIC: Until I reached my twenty-first year.
KING: No, until you reached your twenty-first birthday
(producing document), and, going by birthdays, you are
as yet only five-and-a-quarter.
FREDERIC: You don't mean to say you are going to hold me to that?
KING: No, we merely remind you of the fact, and leave the
rest to your sense of duty.
RUTH: Your sense of duty!
FREDERIC: (wildly) Don't put it on that footing! As I was
merciful to you just now, be merciful to me! I implore
you not to insist on the letter of your bond just as
the cup of happiness is at my lips!
RUTH: We insist on nothing; we content ourselves with
pointing out to you your duty.
KING: Your duty!
FREDERIC: (after a pause) Well, you have appealed to my sense of
duty, and my duty is only too clear. I abhor your
infamous calling; I shudder at the thought that I have
ever been mixed up with it; but duty is before all --
at any price I will do my duty.
KING: Bravely spoken! Come, you are one of us once more.
FREDERIC: Lead on, I follow. (Suddenly) Oh, horror!
KING/RUTH: What is the matter?
FREDERIC: Ought I to tell you? No, no, I cannot do it; and yet,
as one of your band--
KING: Speak out, I charge you by that sense of
conscientiousness to which we have ne