[aculeus]

I remind him that I once introduced him to that other great veteran of the Bay Area, Jessica "Decca" Mitford ... At the close of that dinner I challenged him to write her a limerick on the spot, and he gallantly and spontaneously produced the following:

They don't find they're having to check a
Movement of homage to Decca.
It's no longer fair
To say Oakland's "not there"
She's made it a regular Mecca.

The old girl was quite blown away by this tribute, and kept the inscribed napkin as a souvenir.

[dighton]

... the limericks, some of which cannot be reproduced in a family-oriented newspaper ...

Then you have his squeaky-clean limericks, published under the name Victor Gray. For instance,

While visiting Arundel Castle
I sent my sick uncle a parcel.
The contents of it
Were the local grey grit
To rub on his sore metatarsal.

and

One morning old Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Was wanting a trip in a punt;
But the puntmen had struck,
So he shouted ‘Good luck!
—Your wage is a social affront!’