Checking the boots of my mind for scorpions

The wax cylinders I found in Professor-Doctor Nyfenfork's study continue to yield up secrets, however slowly and unwillingly. The real coup now would be to find a device capable of playing them. The labels, however, present some problems. If the information thereon is correct, then the good Nyfenfork has been chief of crypto-alienist syllogistics at Saint Feasance's for...eighty-two years?