The Clerk of the Race filed on Wednesday and decreed the rematch for the eighth. The parties most concerned wrote in. The editor prints the three letters that reached this desk by Thursday afternoon, with notes in brackets where one seemed wanted. The letters are edited for length only.
From the Coot of the Channel Sprint, filed Wednesday afternoon
Sir, I write to acknowledge the Clerk of the Race’s return and his decree of Wednesday morning, and to confirm formally that I shall be at the start of the rematch on the morning of the eighth instant, in good condition. I have, as previously committed in correspondence reproduced in your column of the sixth instant of last month, no intention on this occasion of bringing the pebble to the start, the pebble being, by the Clerk’s own arrangement, due to be returned at the finish line. I shall, accordingly, run unencumbered. I shall finish third. I require only that the classification, when it is determined upon at the close of the contest, be such as to permit me to record the finish as a finish, in such terms as the Clerk of the Race may determine to be appropriate to the third position.
COOT
[The editor thanks the coot for the confirmation. The question of classification is reserved to the rematch itself, as he says. The editor will record the eighth in whatever terms the finish line, in due course, allows.]
From the Rising Young Goose of the north bank, filed Thursday morning
Sir, I should be obliged if it could be set down in your pages that I shall be at the start of the rematch on the morning of the eighth instant, having received the Clerk of the Race’s decree and considered the matter at the customary length. I have, in the period since the spring sprint, attended to the conditions which the east channel is likely to present; the channel has, by my own observation, settled into a configuration not materially different from that obtaining at the previous race, which I record for the gazette’s interest. My name remains, as before, with the Clerk pending the paperwork, and I write under the form by which I am at present known in these pages.
A RISING YOUNG GOOSE OF THE NORTH BANK
[The editor records the entry with thanks. The paperwork is expected, on the Clerk’s word, to be done in time for the formal acknowledgement at the start. The gazette is glad, meanwhile, to print the form by which the writer prefers for now to be known.]
From the Drake Known as Reginald, filed Thursday afternoon
Sir, I have read, with the satisfaction such announcements warrant, the news of the Clerk of the Race’s return, and of the rematch scheduled at his decree. I shall, on the morning of the eighth instant, be present at the bank in my capacity as a spectator, and I trust that the Clerk’s arrangements in respect of categories will by then be in such order as to render unnecessary the kind of protracted post-race adjudication which marked, by some considerable distance, the most fatiguing portion of the spring proceedings. I add only that “Reginald” is, the Clerk has at no point disputed in private, the form by which I am addressed by those who know me.
REGINALD
[The editor welcomes the writer back to the column after an interval and records the intended attendance. As to the registration of names the editor offers no comment. He notes only that the spring proceedings the writer refers to are, in this paper’s archive, among the most thoroughly documented of the season.]
The editor declines further comment, this week.