Hogfather Part 35

The Ankh-Morpork wa.s.sailers had practiced for weeks.

The custom was referred to by Anaglypta Huggs, organizer of the best and most select group of the city's singers, as an occasion for fellowship and good cheer.

One should always be wary of people who talk unashamedly of "fellowship and good cheer" as if it were something that can be applied to life like a poultice. Turn your back for a moment and they may well organize a maypole dance and, frankly, there's no option then but to try and make it to the tree line.

The singers were halfway down Park Lane now, and halfway through "The Red Rosy Hen" in marvelous harmony.* Their collecting tins were already full of donations for the poor of the city, or at least those sections of the poor who in Mrs. Huggs's opinion were suitably picturesque and not too smelly and could be relied upon to say thank you. People had come to their doors to listen. Orange light spilled onto the snow. Candle lanterns glowed among the tumbling flakes. If you could have taken the lid off the scene, there would have been chocolates inside. Or at least an interesting biscuit a.s.sortment. Their collecting tins were already full of donations for the poor of the city, or at least those sections of the poor who in Mrs. Huggs's opinion were suitably picturesque and not too smelly and could be relied upon to say thank you. People had come to their doors to listen. Orange light spilled onto the snow. Candle lanterns glowed among the tumbling flakes. If you could have taken the lid off the scene, there would have been chocolates inside. Or at least an interesting biscuit a.s.sortment.

Mrs. Huggs had heard that wa.s.sailing was an ancient ritual, and you didn't need anyone to tell you what that that meant, but she felt she'd carefully removed all those elements that would affront the refined ear. meant, but she felt she'd carefully removed all those elements that would affront the refined ear.

And it was only gradually that the singers became aware of the discord.

Around the corner, slipping and sliding on the ice, came another band of singers.

Some people march to a different drummer. The drummer in question here must have been trained elsewhere, possibly by a different species on another planet.

In front of the group was a legless man on a small wheeled trolley, who was singing at the top of his voice and banging two saucepans together. His name was Arnold Sideways. Pushing him along was Coffin Henry, whose croaking progress through an entirely different song was punctuated by bouts of off-the-beat coughing. He was accompanied by a perfectly ordinary-looking man in torn, dirty and yet expensive clothing, whose pleasant tenor voice was drowned out by the quacking of a duck on his head. He answered to the name of Duck Man, although he never seemed to understand why, or why he was always surrounded by people who seemed to see ducks where no ducks could be. And finally, being towed along by a small gray dog on a string, was Foul Ole Ron, generally regarded in Ankh-Morpork as the deranged beggars' deranged beggar. He was probably incapable of singing, but at least he was attempting to swear in time to the beat, or beats.

The wa.s.sailers stopped and watched them in horror.

Neither party noticed, as the beggars oozed and ambled up the street, that little smears of black and gray were spiraling out of drains and squeezing out from under tiles and buzzing off into the night. People have always had the urge to sing and clang things at the dark stub of the year, when all sorts of psychic nastiness has taken advantage of the long gray days and the deep shadows to lurk and breed. Lately people had taken to singing harmoniously, which rather lost the effect. Those who really understood just clanged something and shouted.

The beggars were not in fact this well versed in folkloric practice. They were just making a din in the well-founded hope that people would give them money to stop.

It was just possible to make out a consensus song in there somewhere.

"Hogswatch is coming,The pig is getting fat,Please put a dollar in the old man's hatIf you ain't got a dollar a penny will do-"

"And if you ain't got a penny," Foul Ole Ron yodeled, solo, "then-fghfgh yffg mfmfmf..."

The Duck Man had, with great presence of mind, clamped a hand over Ron's mouth.

"So sorry about this," he said, "but this this time I'd like people not to slam their doors on us. And it doesn't scan, anyway." time I'd like people not to slam their doors on us. And it doesn't scan, anyway."

The nearby doors slammed regardless. The other wa.s.sailers fled hastily to a more salubrious location. Goodwill to all men was a phrase coined by someone who hadn't met Foul Ole Ron.

The beggars stopped singing, except for Arnold Sideways, who tended to live in his own small world.

"-n.o.body knows how good we can live, on boots three times a day..."

Then the change in the air penetrated even his consciousness.

Snow thumped off the trees as a contrary wind brushed them. There was a whirl of flakes and it was just possible, since the beggars did not always have their mental compa.s.ses pointing due Real, that they heard a brief s.n.a.t.c.h of conversation.

"It just ain't that simple, master, that's all I'm saying-"

IT IS BETTER TO GIVE THAN TO RECEIVE, ALBERT.

"No, master, it's just a lot more expensive. You can't just go around-"

Things rained down on the snow.

The beggars looked at them. Arnold Sideways carefully picked up a sugar pig and bit its nose off. Foul Ole Ron peered suspiciously into a cracker that had bounced off his hat, and then shook it against his ear.

The Duck Man opened a bag of sweets.

"Ah, humbugs?" he said.

Coffin Henry unlooped a string of sausages from around his neck.

"Buggrit?" said Foul Ole Ron.

"It's a cracker," said the dog, scratching its ear. "You pull it."

Ron waved the cracker aimlessly by one end.

"Oh, give it here," said the dog, and gripped the other end in its teeth.

"My word," said the Duck Man, fishing in a snow drift. "Here's a whole roast pig! And And a big dish of roast potatoes, miraculously uncracked! And...look...isn't this caviar in the jar? Asparagus! Potted shrimp! My goodness! What were we going to have for Hogswatch dinner, Arnold?" a big dish of roast potatoes, miraculously uncracked! And...look...isn't this caviar in the jar? Asparagus! Potted shrimp! My goodness! What were we going to have for Hogswatch dinner, Arnold?"

"Old boots," said Arnold. He opened a fallen box of cigars and licked them.

"Just old boots?"

"Oh, no. Stuffed with mud, and with roast mud. 's good mud, too. I bin saving it up."

"Now we can have a merry feast of goose!"

"All right. Can we stuff it with old boots?"

There was a pop from the direction of the cracker. They heard Foul Ole Ron's thinking-brain dog growl.

"No, no, no, you put the hat hat on your on your head head and you and you read read the hum'rous the hum'rous mottar mottar."

"Millennium hand and shrimp?" said Ron, pa.s.sing the sc.r.a.p of paper to the Duck Man. The Duck Man was regarded as the intellectual of the group.

He peered at the motto.

"Ah, yes, let's see now...It says 'Help Help Help Ive Fallen in the Crakker Machine I Cant Keep Runin on this Roller Please Get me Ou-'" He turned the paper over a few times. "That appears to be it, except for the stains."

"Always the same ole mottars," said the dog. "Someone slap Ron on the back, will you? If he laughs any more he'll-oh, he has. Oh, well, nothing new about that."

The beggars spent a few more minutes picking up hams, jars and bottles that had settled on the snow. They packed them around Arnold on his trolley and set off down the street.

"How come we got all this?"

"'s Hogswatch, right?"

"Yeah, but who hung up their stocking?"

"I don't think we've got any, have we?"

"I hung up an old boot."

"Does that count?"

"Dunno. Ron ate it."

I'm waiting for the Hogfather, thought Ponder Stibbons. I'm in the dark waiting for the Hogfather. Me. A believer in Natural Philosophy. I can find the square root of 27.4 in my head.* I shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be doing this.

It's not as if I've hung a stocking up. There'd be some point point if... if...

He sat rigid for a moment, and then pulled off his pointy sandal and rolled down a sock. It helped if you thought of it as the scientific testing of an interesting hypothesis.

From out of the darkness Ridcully said, "How long, do you think?"

"It's generally believed that all deliveries are completed well before midnight," said Ponder, and tugged hard.

"Are you all right, Mr. Stibbons?"

"Fine, sir. Fine. Er...do you happen to have a drawing pin about you? Or a small nail, perhaps?"

"I don't believe so."

"Oh, it's all right. I've found a penknife."

After a while Ridcully heard a faint scratching noise in the dark.

"How do you spell 'electricity,' sir?"

Ridcully thought for a while. "You know, I don't think I ever do."

There was silence again, and then a clang. The Librarian grunted in his sleep.

"What are you doing?"

"I just knocked over the coal shovel."

"Why are you feeling around on the mantelpiece?"

"Oh, just...you know, just...just looking. A little...experiment. After all, you never know."

"You never know what?"

"Just...never know, you know."

"Sometimes you know," said Ridcully. "I think I know quite a lot that I didn't used to know. It's amazing what you you know," said Ridcully. "I think I know quite a lot that I didn't used to know. It's amazing what you do do end up knowing, I sometimes think. I often wonder what new stuff I'll know." end up knowing, I sometimes think. I often wonder what new stuff I'll know."

"Well, you never know."

"That's a fact."

High over the city Albert turned to Death, who seemed to be trying to avoid his gaze.

"You didn't get that that stuff out of the sack! Not cigars and peaches in brandy and grub with fancy foreign names!" stuff out of the sack! Not cigars and peaches in brandy and grub with fancy foreign names!"

YES, IT CAME OUT OF THE SACK.

Albert gave him a suspicious look.

"But you put it in the sack in the first place, didn't you?"

NO.

"You did, didn't you?" Albert stated.

NO.

"You put all those things in the sack."

NO.

"You got them from somewhere and put them in the sack."

NO.

"You did did put them in the sack, didn't you?" put them in the sack, didn't you?"

NO.

"You put them in the sack."

YES.

"I knew knew you put them in the sack. Where did you get them?" you put them in the sack. Where did you get them?"