填空题

Editors of newspapers and magazines often go to extremes to (36) their readers with unimportant facts and statistics. Last year a journalist had been (37) by a well-known magazine to write an article on the president’s palace in a new African (38) . When the article arrived, the editor read the first sentence and then (39) to publish it. The article began: "Hundreds of steps lead to the high wall which (40) the president’s palace." The editor at once sent the journalist a fax instructing him to find out the exact number of steps and the (41) of the wail. The journalist (42) set out to (43) these important facts, but he took a long time to send them. Meanwhile, (44) He sent the journalist two more faxes, but received no reply. (45) . When the journalist again failed to reply, the editor reluctantly published the article as it had originally been written. A week later, the editor at last received a fax from the journalist. (46) . However, he had at last been allowed to send a fax in which he informed the editor that he had been arrested while counting the 1,084 steps leading to the fifteen foot wail which surrounded the president’s palace.