THE TAPEWORM

A tapeworm called Neil decided that just living inside an intestine wasn't profitable enough and that it might be worthwhile to go into publishing as a sideline. It occurred to him that there might be a demand for overpriced pamphlets of ghost and horror stories.

He advertised for submissions and when he started receiving them he told the authors that their work had been accepted and asked them to sign contracts that gave him all the rights to their work. He was only interested in selling on these rights to bigger publishing companies; but to make his swindle plausible he had to create an illusion that a product was available, so he stole images to serve as artwork for the covers and printed off just a handful of authors' copies of each work.

This stratagem kept the authors off his back for a time, but the readers who ordered and paid for pamphlets never received any. Nor did Neil the tapeworm ever pay any advances or royalties to his authors. When he was rumbled, he took his profits, moved to another intestine and started up an identical business with a different name.

One day the owner of this new intestine accidentally swallowed a car jack. When the jack reached the gut and saw the tapeworm it cried, “You are my son!” But Neil the jack's son shook his head and said, “Hush dad, you fool! I've changed my surname too!”

¶ He's still out there somewhere. Beware…