Thaddeus Limpsims FRSA FSRLG FAFF Esq. was known far and wide as an acclaimed antiquarian of great assiduity and acumen, and even further for his remarkable Antiqupogglencylopaedictionarium - a magnum opus of many decades of creation in which he hoped to record every old and curious thing that ever existed, from the ancient ballads of the Singing Silktagglers of the Paloorian Slug Caves (pp. 3433-543, vol. XVII) to the mosaic patterns used on the floors and ceilings of the royal sauna of the Bambushka of Bamul (pp.774-988, vol. XXXV) .
Though he was by pint-side reputation an intrepid and daring scholar-explorer, as most stories go, it had become rather overinflated by the braggadocious prattle of servants and other ne'er-do-wells. The truth was all his antiquarian expeditions had been mounted from the comfort of his capacious studded-leather armchair, worn smooth by the excited jump he made every time the heavy brass knocker of 69 Brookecarros Square thumped and thudded, signalling the incoming post and new things to be learned and studied, noted, filed, catalogued, prodded, pondered, thinkered and finally added as an entry in his ever sprawling manuscript for the Antiqupogglencylopaedictionarium.
Limpsims was a great patron of the postal service, a wad of heavy envelopes ritually given and exchanged both morning and evening. However, the postman would with some regularity also bring more interesting cargo. Boxes and crates arrived, groaning with arcane books and fragments of lost ages carried upstairs to the ballroom which had become his library and study. It was in these giddy moments that his pinz-nez spectacles fogged with delight and he broke communion with his great manuscript for the Antiqupogglencylopaedictionarium which like the tower of the Heliopolonopoloipos monastery (pp. 6655, vol. DLV) teetered on the right-hand side of his desk and on the seven hundred and seventy-seven spindly-legged tables which jostled around him, each surmounted by teetering crags of paper covered with his elaborate spidery scrawl. Inevitably whatever had arrived certainly meant another chapter. His exasperated publisher, Simeon of S. Palding & Daughters routinely admonished Limpsims for his verbosity and vainly reminded him that the original commission was for an hundred page pamphlet on the interesting historical features of the local parish church St. Henrietta-Le-Custard (pp. 1-10000, vol. I).
And yet, THHHHHUMPLE, went the door knocker with truly dizzying speed as more books and post came to produce more chapters of the Antiqupogglencylopaedictionarium. Almost as fast as Muntgimmery, his poor beleaguered butler was forced to empty the chamberpot and bring in his meagre supper of kippers in milk, for Limpsims never ever ever left his chair or his darling manuscript. A light bit of napping here and there kept him humming along, and his sheer manic enthusiasm kept all his increasingly brittle bones together.
The trouble with magnum opuses, especially those which stretch on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on to DCLXVI volumes with innumerable chapters and footnotes and other wordiness is that one rather produces a lot of paper. So much paper in fact that even the most sturdy of floors would rather groan beneath their weight. As it was, (in a lesson to all scholars of zealous productivity), the added weight of the XIII Chapter to Volume DCLXVI was just a chapter too far. For the tremors sounded by the next THHHHHUMPLE, of Limpsims’ door knocker started an almighty rumble through the beams that snickersnacked through the floorboards and whispered angrily through the walls which supported the library until it turned into an almighty CRACCCCCKLE. Then a bang, then a billow of dust and debris. All it went, each and every page of each and every chapter and volume of the Antiqupogglencylopaedictionarium, down in seconds into an horrible heap.
Needless to say, the Antiqupogglencylopaedictionarium was published posthumously. Indeed, all that could be salvaged by poor Limpsims’ publisher was a slender abridged version, Volume 1 - pages 1-100, concerning the local church. Always stick to your word limit.
