Two more letters have reached the gazette since Thursday’s column, both, in the editor’s judgement, of interest enough to readers following matters now of some standing to earn a short supplementary appearance. Replies are appended in brackets where clarification looked called for. Letters have been cut for length. Plausibility, this week, gave no trouble.
From the coot of the Channel Sprint, filed late on Friday evening
Sir, I write to address, against the moon now approaching, the matter of the next feast of next moon, and of the Channel Sprint rematch which has been, by the Subcommittee’s miscellaneous observations of the twenty-seventh of last month, deferred from the moon most recently passed. The Subcommittee’s deferral I accept in its proper form. The Clerk of the Race being still away on matters not, the gazette is informed, lightly explained, I do not protest the deferral. I cannot protest a deferral reached for so customary a reason. I record only that, at the moon now approaching, I stand ready to run.
I reaffirm to the gazette, and through it to such readers as care, that on the day the Clerk of the Race appoints, be it the moon now approaching or, should circumstances require, the moon after, I will run. I will finish third. I will not, on this occasion, bring the pebble, which stays in the keeping of the Clerk of the Reed-Bed Subcommittee for reasons procedural, well-rehearsed, and not, by my reading, lately advanced.
A small further point. The position I committed to in the season’s earlier correspondence, that of finishing third in every later Channel Sprint until the record of the spring race is formally amended, I undertake here to hold through this rematch and through such races as follow it. The commitment is not lightly given. I record it for any party who may, between now and the appointed hour, find himself moved to enquire after my intentions.
COOT
[The editor receives the letter with the unhurried courtesy the present correspondent has lately made his register. The continued absence of the Clerk of the Race is, the gazette agrees, the near cause of the deferral. The pebble’s continued residence with the Clerk of the Reed-Bed Subcommittee is likewise noted. The commitment to finish third is set down here for such readers as have lost the thread, and for such parties as may be tempted, at the appointed hour, to ask the writer whether the commitment still stands. It does.]
From Drake Halford of the east shore, filed on Friday morning
Sir, I write briefly. My fifth filing in the matter of the household census, lodged on the sixteenth of last month, is at the time of writing reported by the Clerk to be under review. I should be glad of confirmation, at the editor’s earliest convenience, that no further information is wanted from the writer for the present, and that the writer may carry on, in the customary way, with the morning circuit. I do not press the matter past this small enquiry. I am, after seasons of patience, less easily perturbed than once I was.
DRAKE HALFORD
[The gazette put the question to the Clerk. He indicates that no further information is wanted from the writer at the present hour, and that the customary morning circuit may continue without disturbing the review in its eventual course. The gazette is grateful for the writer’s continued patience, of which it counts itself, on the present showing, a beneficiary.]
Further correspondence is held over for the next column. The reeds are open, as always, to whatever the readers see fit to send down them.