Year to Date

A Rhode Island Red rooster with deep mahogany plumage in a charcoal waistcoat over a pale blue shirt, seated in a leather desk chair with his suit jacket draped behind him, beside a mahogany partners' desk with an open ledger, a fountain pen, a string-tied bundle of unopened envelopes and a green banker's lamp, a city skyline at blue-hour dusk through the sash window

The Second Quarter, Closed

Half the year was now behind him, audited and broadly accounted for. He initialled it once, without ceremony, and resolved — as he does every thirtieth of June — that the second half would be the one in which he finally answers the correspondence.

30 June 2026