Thursday, February the 2nd, 2006
back to: title, date or indexes
Episode nine in our not-quite-daily serialisation of The Immense Duckpond Pamphlet, this time without any potato pictures
Like the novelist Samuel Richardson, Doctor Cack was an enthusiastic indexer of his own work. Even before he arrived at the House, he had been issuing his Bulletin Of Potato Science & Related Matters every quarter. The bulk of the contents he wrote himself, allowing the occasional interjection from Ruhugu, Moop, Trellis and the others. Only Jubble had been barred from its pages, because he was unhinged.
Every five years, Doctor Cack published, as a separate volume, a cumulative index to the Bulletin. His skills lay in thematic rather than purely alphabetic indexing. Indeed, Scridge has remarked that, like Prynne's Histrio-Mastix (1633), Doctor Cack's indices are often more readable than the texts from which they are eked.
Of the most recent edition of the Quinquennial Collection Of Instructive Sentiments, Maxims, Descriptions, Footnotes, Evasions, Queries & Accusations Contained In The Bulletin Of Potato Science & Related Matters, Digested Under Proper Heads, Scridge reported that he was “driven to hilarity” by the entry for Potato Cyst Eelworm, an infection which stunts and withers the crop, with haulm dying down prematurely and tubers the size of marbles resulting.
Of course, Scridge cannot always be trusted, for he is a deceitful toad. There are those who assert that he has never read a single word of Doctor Cack's majestic works, indeed that he has never read a single potato-related text in his entire sorry life.