Note 24 — Chapter V · JOURNALISM AND THE STAGE
Reading edition
The first and last verses are as follows:
Of all the boys that are so smart There's none like crafty Labby; He learns the secret of each heart, And lives near our Abbey; There is no lawyer in the land That's half as sharp as Labby; He is a demon in the art And guileless as a babby!
The ministers and members all Make game of truthful Labby, Though but for him it's said they'd be A sleepy set and flabby; And when their seven long years are out, They hope to bury Labby; Ah then how peacefully he'll lie, But not in our Abbey!