DISPATCHES
The storm passed in the small hours and did less than feared. The deputy has been recovered, gauge in hand. And a dark object the size of a small drake has appeared on the north shore, which the pond is now, cautiously, prodding.
WEATHER
An east wind, a falling barometer, and hail expected by evening. The Warden has issued a rare advisory, the bread and the pebble are on higher ground, and the older drakes will not stop invoking the storm of three winters past.
FEATURES
After weeks of asking, the Warden of the Sluice granted a brief audience: near the gate, under a quarter hour, and on no account to be called an interview. What the office mostly is, the Warden says, is leaving things alone.
FROM THE POND
The south bank before the first honk, in which very little happens and happens well: a calmer bread queue, the goslings on their second circuit, and the older drakes settling what they always settle.
CLASSIFIEDS
The week's pondside notices, set in the order they were filed: a deputy's post to fill, a grey pebble its owner would rather not be named to recover, pondweed going cheap at the south reeds, a whistle nobody has claimed, and one position in the southern waters the Clerk has left, on purpose, blank.
DISPATCHES
The Reed-Bed Subcommittee met for an afternoon and deferred four matters. One of them was the question of why it keeps deferring. The Clerk called it a respectable session.
LETTERS
The week's correspondence, with editorial notes in brackets. A drake disputes the bread figure, a coot disputes a classification, a family disputes nothing, and a frog corrects the obituaries with great courtesy. Edited for length and, where needed, for plausibility.