Is he writing verse or prosing,
Or intent upon disclosing
Gifts for musical composing?

Is he lecturing to flappers?
Is he tunnelling with sappers?
Has he joined the U-boat trappers?

Or, to petrify recorders
Of events within our borders,
_Has he taken Holy Orders?_

Is he well or ill or middling?
Is he fighting, is he fiddling?--
He can't only be thumb-twiddling.

These are merely dim surmises,
But experience advises
Us to look for weird surprises,
Somersaults, and strange disguises.

* * * * *

Thus we summed the situation
When Sir HEDWORTH MEUX' oration
Brought about a transformation.

Lo! the Blenheim Boanerges
On a sudden re-emerges