Classic Poem

If Hunks should see me buy a coat,
A slave, or something worth a groat,
He shudders at my spendthrift whim,
And lest I beg a loan of him —
Though I have known him many a year —
He whispers so that I may hear: —
" Four thousand Sesterces are due
To Phoebus, and Secundus too
Is pressing for his debt, 'tis seven;
Philetus duns me for eleven:
I've not a farthing left to spend."
How clever, my ingenious friend!
Were I to ask, refusing me
Would wound your generosity;
It needs must be a harder task
Refusing what I do not ask.