Bread hit a new high at the East Bank feeding point on Monday. A half-slice of rye now costs the better part of a morning’s work. A heel, once beneath mention in a paper of this standing, changes wings at figures that bought a full slice and a crust besides last season.
The pond is being squeezed. This paper will say so plainly, because the officials will not.
The Clerk of the Reed-Bed Subcommittee, asked to comment, honked once and swam away. That is recorded, with reluctance, as no further comment at this time. The Warden of the Sluice, reached at a later hour, observed that bread pricing does not fall within the Warden’s remit and suggested we try again in a week. The Clerk of the Exchequer, a position only recently invented by all appearances, could not be reached at all.
The figure is eleven crusts to the hour. Eleven. The winter benchmark was seven, and this column has tracked the crust index since the cooler months, through every adjustment the feeding points have seen fit to make to it, so it does not say eleven lightly. By feeding point, from the best accounts available:
- East Bank: eleven, up from seven, the line now past the third reed.
- South Shore: nine, but short of heels, which some hold the more reliable unit.
- The Old Willow: eight, thought artificially low on account of the bread being older than usual.
- North Bank: unavailable, on account of the fog. See Sunday’s bulletin.
By whom is the pond squeezed? That cannot yet be said. Several drakes of no fixed address have lately been waddling about with the look of birds who know more than they are paying. One, approached for comment, produced a heel of unknown provenance and walked, slowly and without apology, into the reeds. We did not follow him in.
The letters have arrived in volume. Three, as a representative sample:
From a correspondent writing from the shallows: “The new rate is unconscionable, and also the heel, which is not bread. One ought to say so plainly. It is a quarter of a loaf on a good day and the cheek of a loaf on a bad one, and I will not be told otherwise.”
From an anonymous correspondent, filed at the south reeds: HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK, with a small grieving illustration of a loaf, captioned in a shaky wing: “the one we lost.”
From a drake signing himself Reginald (the Clerk confirms this is not a registered name): “The problem, Sir, is not the price of bread, but the presumption of the persons setting it. I have paid and will continue to pay. I demand only that we stop pretending this is ordinary.”
The question went to every feeding station in turn. The answer was the same each time. A polite waddle away, and once an offer to take the enquiry again next week. We read that as an admission. We will revise the reading if better information surfaces. None has.
Older waterfowl will remember the Great Heel Shortage of the late frost, which went uncovered here, no paper existing yet, though coverage was by all accounts wanted. This time the matter will not pass in silence. We owe the readers from the shallows that much, and the readers who can only honk it.
In the meantime, this paper advises restraint, dignity, and the quiet stockpiling of anything left unattended on the south bank by persons who ought to have known better. Restraint chiefly. The other two as conditions allow.
A heel for the price of a slice. A slice for the price of a morning. This paper does not yet know whose wing is on the scale. We intend to find out.