Fined or Robbed?

Narrator:

Oh I'm sorry my son, t'is a day overdue, T'is a fine you will have to be paying, So dip in your hand and give us our due, For our books are most wantonly straying.

Chorus:

Our books are most wantonly straying.

Narrator:

For there's Nelly and Jenny and Hortense too, Whose wages we have to be paying, And students with money are only too few, So we might as well make while it's shining.

Chorus:

Yes, we might as well make while it's shining.

Narrator:

Half a dollar a week, or a part, I am told, We are all millionaires for the asking; So pay up or else, in silver and gold, For the time is now ripe for the reckoning.

Chorus:

Black boot polish, torn pages, and poor students.

Narrator:

So if it's your belly you think of, me bhoy, Just leave the good books to their owner; They don't belong to us but never you mind. They are only composed of the paper.

Chorus:

Away with all material objects.

Narrator:

Who pays for the books, you might very well ask? Why, many in fact were donated, So bring them back quick to be used by the "quick," For their owners have all been cremated.

Chorus:

Them were the days.

—Houyhnhnm McGonagall Scriblerus.