The author conveys the message that people are willing to do anything absurd to have a few minutes of attention and fame.
Explanation:
"The Approaching Epidemic" is a story that lampoons people who do everything for popularity, attention and fame, even submitting themselves to embarrassing, humiliating and ridiculous situations in order to get their own egos massaged by alleged admirers.
The author does this through characters who make up ridiculous stories about some kind of contact between them and Charles Dickens, after his death, reaching the sum of a person wanting to become famous because he supposedly owned a toothpick that Dickens used.
