Two mornings after the special session, the south bank had the look of a pond that had recently put itself out and was in no hurry to do so again. The light was good. The water ran warm enough for the older drakes to remark on, though on this occasion they did not. The reeds at the western end dried the way reeds dry on a Sunday after a Friday of consequence: slowly, and without apology, and with no visible plan to be anywhere else by afternoon.
This paper took up a position a little after the second honk and held it something near two hours, on the theory that any news worth having would come to the bank rather than make itself chased. The Clerk of the Reed-Bed Subcommittee passed the reeds twice, at the second honk and again at the fourth, carrying paper toward the pigeonholes both times. Whether it was Friday’s paper or next week’s was not a thing worth asking on a Sunday. The Junior Member of the Subcommittee, who took the records-review result of the twenty-third in a silence clocked at four breaths, was not at the reeds. He was not anywhere the south bank could see. That went down under things one does not press.
The long-resident frog surfaced near the third honk, considered the bank for about two breaths, and went back under without a word. The southern waters were arranged as they have been all season, around the gap at their middle. The gazette has not named that gap lately. The position is still formally vacant, and it has now stood vacant long enough that the regular reader is trusted to remember it without being told.
The older drakes were at the western end, as ever. Their talk, pitched at the volume they have settled on for a Sunday, reached the bank in no form fit to print. It did, though, include a pause of real length around the third honk, long enough that the conversation seemed to have stopped, and then long enough again that it plainly had not, after which all four drakes agreed on a single remark. Of the substance, nothing. Of the manner, the impression was of a matter weighed and set down.
Rehearsals for the midsummer programme, whose cooperation was made a civic matter on Friday, had not begun on Sunday, so far as could be told. Hettie was not in the southern waters. Mabel of the north bank, lately the co-honker, was not reported on the south bank at any point. The Cultural Subcommittee is understood to be holding the running order for posting in the reeds within the fortnight from the twenty-first, after which there should be more to say.
So the pond, on the Sunday after its biggest session of the season, chose to do very little, and to do it with the unhurried thoroughness that is the south bank’s whole contribution to civic life. The week starts tomorrow, in no particular rush. This paper left around the sixth honk and walked out toward the reeds to file, past the western end, where the reeds stood drying in the warm light, taking their time about it, in no more of a hurry than the morning had been.