Hogfather

     'And started giving stuff away?' said Corporal Nobbs.

     'That's what I said! That's got to be a Crime, hasn't it?'

     Corporal Nobbs rubbed his nose.

     'Well, nearly,' he  conceded, not  wishing to  totally  relinquish  the chance of  any festive remuneration.  Realization dawned.  'He's giving away your stuff, sir?'

     'No! No, he brought it in with him!'

     'Ah? Giving  away your stuff, now,  if he was doing  that, yes, I could see the problem. That's a sure sign of crime, stuff going missing. Stuff turning up,  weerlll, that's a tricky  one. Unless it's stuff like arms and legs, o'  course. We'd be on safer ground if he was  nicking stuff, sir, to tell you the truth.'

     'This  is a shop,' said Mr  Crumley, finally getting to the root of the problem.  'We do not give Merchandise away. How can we expect people  to buy things  if some Person is giving them away? Now please go and get him out of here.'

     'Arrest the Hogfather, style of thing?'

     'Yes!'

     'On Hogswatchnight?'

     'Yes!'

     'In your shop?'

     'Yes!'

     'In front of all those kiddies?'

     'Y...'  Mr Crumley hesitated. To his horror, he realized  that  Corporal Nobbs, against all expectation, had a point. 'You think that will look bad?' he said.

     'Hard to see how it could look good, sir.'

     'Could you not do it surreptitiously?' he said.

     'Ah, well, surreptition, yes, we could  give that a try,' said Corporal Nobbs. The sentence hung in the air with its hand out.

     'You won't find me ungrateful,' said Mr Crumley, at last.

     'Just you leave it to us,' said Corporal Nobbs, magnanimous in victory. 'You just nip down to your office  and treat yourself to a  nice cup  of tea and we'll sort this out in no time. You'll be ever so grateful.'

     Crumley  gave him a look  of a man  in the  grip of serious doubt,  but staggered away nonetheless. Corporal Nobbs rubbed his hands together.

     'You don't have Hogswatch back where you come from do you, Washpot?' he said, as they climbed  the stairs to the  first floor. 'Look at this carpet, you'd think a pig'd pissed on it ...'

     'We call it the  Fast of St Ossory,' said Visit,  who was  from  Omnia. 'But it  is not  an occasion  for  superstition and  crass commercialism. We simply get together in family groups for a prayer meeting and a fast.'

     'What, turkey and chicken and that?'

     'A fast, Corporal Nobbs. We don't eat anything.'

     'Oh, right.  Well, each to his own,  I  s'pose. And at least  you don't have to get up early in the morning and find  that the nothing you've got is too big to fit in the oven. No presents neither?'

     They stood  aside hurriedly as two  children scuttled  down the  stairs carrying a large toy boat between them.

     'It  is sometimes appropriate to exchange new  religious pamphlets, and of course there are usually copies of the Book of  Ossory for the children,' said  Constable  Visit.  'Sometimes  with  illustrations,'  he added, in the guarded way of a man hinting at licentious pleasures.

     A small  girl  went past carrying a teddy bear larger than herself.  It was pink.

     'They always gives me bath salts,' complained Nobby. 'And bath soap and bubble bath and herbal bath lumps and tons of bath stuff and I can't think why, 'cos it's not as if I  hardly ever has  a bath. You'd think they'd take the hint, wouldn't you?'

     'Abominable, I call it,' said Constable Visit.

     The first floor was a mob.

     'Huh, look at them. Mr Hogfather never brought me anything when I was a kid,' said  Corporal Nobbs, eyeing the children gloomily. 'I used to hang up my stocking every Hogswatch, regular. All that ever happened was  my dad was sick in it once.' He removed his helmet.

     Nobby was not by any measure a hero, but there was the  sudden gleam in his eye  of someone who'd seen altogether too many empty stockings  plus one rather full and  dripping one. A scab had been knocked off some wound in the corrugated little organ of his soul.

     'I'm going in,' he said.

     In between the University's Great Hall and  its main door is  a  rather smaller  circular  hall  or  vestibule   known  as  Archchancellor  Bowell's Remembrance, although no one  now knows why,  or why an extant bequest pays. for one small currant bun and one copper penny to be placed on a high stone shelf on one  wall every second  Wednesday.[15] Ridcully stood in the middle of the floor, looking upwards.

     'Tell  me,  Senior   Wrangler,  we  never  invited  any  women  to   the Hogswatchnight Feast, did we?'

     'Of course not, Archchancellor,' said the Senior Wrangler. He looked up in the dust-covered rafters, wondering what had caught Ridcully's eye. 'Good heavens, no. They'd spoil everything. I've always said so.'

     'And all the maids have got the evening off until midnight?'

     'A very generous custom,  I've always said,' said the  Senior Wrangler, feeling his neck crick.

     'So why, every year,  do  we hang  a damn  great bunch of  mistletoe up there?'

     The Senior Wrangler turned in a circle, still staring upwards.

     'Welt er ... it's ... well, it's ... it's symbolic, Archchancellor.'

     'Ah?'