Wisdom while you wait

Chapter 35: Specimen Interview between the Editor and a Contributor.

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About This Book

A brief satirical miscellany masquerades as promotional material for a ludicrously grand encyclopaedia, blending parodic advertising copy, faux testimonials, a boastful preface, and absurdly detailed terms of sale. Fragments include mock lists of editors and departments, ridiculous delivery and storage schemes, secret-packing forms, and officious warnings that escalate into surreal consequences. The piece lampoons commercial hype, publishing pretension, and bureaucratic pomposity by using hyperbole, formal documents, and comic inversion of practical concerns.

Specimen Interview between the Editor and a Contributor.

E. Good morning, Mr. Blank; have you done the Spurgeon?

C. I have it with me.

E. And the Herbert Spencer?

C. You shall have it to-morrow.

E. That’s good. And now I want you to tackle Bimetallism, the Beef Trust, and a life of Ruskin. Can I have them by Wednesday morning?

C. Certainly.

E. And, Mr. Blank ——?

C. Yes.

E. Please contrive not to get the facts mixed this time. When you sent in your two last articles, you credited Lord Salisbury with the ‘Washington Post,’ and stated that Sousa had never really understood the art of ingratiating himself with the wives of Tory wire-pullers.