Why should Honesty seek any safer retreat
   From the lawyers or barges, odd-rot-'em?
For the lawyers are just at the top of the street,
   And the barges are just at the bottom!

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Why should Honesty seek any safer retreat
   From the lawyers or barges, odd-rot-'em?
For the lawyers are just at the top of the street,
   And the barges are just at the bottom!" in the context of ""Reply to Smith"
• [First printed in Barham's Life of Hook (1849), in reply to the following epigram by James Smith, "On Craven Street, Strand":
In Craven Street, Strand, ten attorneys find place,
And ten dark coal-barges are moored at the base:
Fly, Honesty, fly, to some safer retreat;
There's craft in the river and craft in the street.]" to mean that wisdom is timeless.