Carroll plays with a counting rhyme, tracking a group of girls as they age from five to "never mind." The speaker, who seems to be part of this circle, watches them tumble from carefree childhood into the strictures of lessons, then flirting, then the quiet panic of unwed adulthood. There's a gentle, knowing irony here — the tone shifts from warm amusement at the little ones "full of tricks" to a sadder, wryer note when the girls are showy at thirty and gracious to men they once snubbed. The final stanza lands on a weary, affectionate shrug: the women are "passé" now, but they jog along together, and the former bachelor speaker realizes where all the money went. It's funny and rueful, a portrait of time's passing and the social cage women once navigated, delivered with a nudge and a sigh rather than outrage.
A Game of Fives — Summary
Five little girls, of Five, Four, Three, Two, One: Rolling on the hearthrug, full of tricks and fun.
Five rosy girls, in years from Ten to Six: Sitting down to lessons - no more time for tricks.
Five growing girls, from Fifteen to Eleven: Music, Drawing, Languages, and food enough for seven!
Five winsome girls, from Twenty to Sixteen: Each young man that calls, I say "Now tell me which you MEAN!"
Five dashing girls, the youngest Twenty-one: But, if nobody proposes, what is there to be done?
Five showy girls - but Thirty is an age When girls may be ENGAGING, but they somehow don't ENGAGE.
Five dressy girls, of Thirty-one or more: So gracious to the shy young men they snubbed so much before!
Five PASSE girls - Their age? Well, never mind! We jog along together, like the rest of human kind: But the quondam "careless bachelor" begins to think he knows The answer to that ancient problem "how the money goes"!