Hogfather

     'I  remember  my  father  tellin' me  some  very valuable  advice about drinks,' said Ridcully.  'He said, "Son, never drink any drink with a  paper umbrella in it, never  drink any drink with a humorous name, and never drink any drink that  changes colour when the last ingredient goes in. And  never, ever, do this ..." '

     He dipped his finger into the beaker.

     It came out with one glistening drop on the end.

     'Careful, Archchancellor,'  warned the Dean. 'What you have there might represent pure sobriety.'

     Ridcully paused with the finger halfway to his lips.

     'Good point,' he said. 'I don't want to start being sober at my time of life.' He looked around. 'How do we usually test stuff?'

     'Generally we ask for student volunteers,' said the Dean.

     'What happens if we don't get any?'

     'We give it to them anyway.'

     'Isn't that a bit unethical?'

     'Not if we don't tell them, Archchancellor.'

     'Ah, good point.'

     'I'll try it,' the oh god mumbled.

     'Something these  clo- gentlemen have cooked up?' said Susan. 'It might kill you!'

     'You've never had a hangover,  I expect,' said the  oh  god. `Otherwise you wouldn't talk such rot.'

     He staggered up to the beaker, managed to grip it on the second go, and drank the lot.

     'There'll  be  fireworks now,'  said the raven, from  Susan's shoulder. 'Flames  coming out  of the mouth, screams, clutching at  the  throat, lying down under the cold tap, that sort of thing ...'

     Death found, to his amazement, that dealing  with  the queue  was  very enjoyable. Hardly anyone had ever been pleased to see him before.

     NEXT! AND WHAT'S YOUR NAME, LITTLE ... He  hesitated,  but rallied, and continued ... PERSON?

     'Nobby Nobbs, Hogfather,' said Nobby. Was it  him, or  was this knee he was sitting on a lot bonier than it should be? His buttocks argued with  his brain, and were sat on.

AND HAVE YOU BEEN  A GOOD BO ... A GOOD  DWA ... A GOOD GNO ...  A GOOD INDIVIDUAL?

     And suddenly Nobby found he had no control at all of his tongue. Of its own accord, gripped by a terrible compulsion, it said:

     ' 's.'

     He struggled for self-possession as the  great voice went  on: SO  I EXPECT YOU'LL WANT A PRESENT FOR A GOOD MON ... A GOOD HUM ... A GOOD MALE?

     Aha,  got you bang to  rights,  you'll be coming along with me,  my old chummy, I  bet you don't  remember the cellar at the  back  of the  shoelace maker's in Old Cobblers, eh, all those Hogswatch mornings with a little hole in my world, eh?

     The  words rose  in  Nobby's throat  but  were overridden by  something ardent  before  they  reached  his  voice  box,  and  to his  amazement were translated into:

     ' 's.'

SOMETHING NICE?

     ' 's.'

     There was hardly anything left of Nobby's conscious will now. The world consisted of nothing but his  naked soul and  the  Hogfather, who filled the universe.

AND YOU WILL OF COURSE BE GOOD FOR ANOTHER YEAR?

     The tiny remnant of basic Nobbyness wanted to say, 'Er, how  exactly do you define "good", mister? Like, suppose there was  just some stuff  that no one'd miss, say? Or, f 'r instance, say a friend of mine was on patrol, sort of thing, and found a shopkeeper had left his  door  unlocked at night. I mean, anyone could walk  in, right, but suppose this friend  took  one or  two  things, sort  of like, you  know,  a gratuity,  and  then called the shopkeeper out and got him to  lock up, that counts as "good", does it?'

     Good and bad were, to Nobby's way of thinking, entirely relative terms. Most  of  his  relatives,  for example,  were  criminals.  But,  again, this invitation to philosophical  debate was ambushed  somewhere  in his  head by sheer dread of the big beard in the sky.

     ' 's,' he squeaked.

NOW, I WONDER WHAT YOU WOULD LIKE?

     Nobby  gave up, and sat  mute.  Whatever was going  to happen next  was going to happen, and there was not  a thing he could do about it . . . Right now, the light at the end of his mental tunnel showed only more tunnel.

AH, YES ...

     The Hogfather reached into his sack and pulled out an  awkwardly shaped present  wrapped in festive  Hogswatch  paper  which, owing to  some  slight confusion on the  current Hogfather's part, had merry ravens on it. Corporal Nobbs took it in nervous hands.

WHAT DO YOU SAY?

     ' nk you.'

OFF YOU GO.

     Corporal Nobbs slid down  gratefully  and  barged his way  through  the crowds, stopping only when he was fielded by Constable Visit.

     'What happened? What happened? I couldn't see!'

     'I dunno,' mumbled Nobby. 'He gave me this.'

     'What is it.'

     'I dunno . .

     He clawed at the raven-bedecked paper.

     'This is disgusting, this whole business,' said Constable  Visit. 'It's the worship of idols ...'

     'It's a genuine   Burleigh and Stronginthearm doubleaction triple-cantilever crossbow with a polished walnut  stock and engraved silver facings!'

     '... a crass commercialization of a  date which is purely of astronomical significance,' said  Visit,  who  seldom  paid  attention  when  he  was  in mid-denounce. 'If it is to be celebrated at all, then ...'