'It's a very loud buzzing,' said the Dean. 'Is it going wrong.

     'No, that shows it's working,' said Ponder. 'It's, er, beehives.'

     He coughed.

     'Different  types of pollen, different thicknesses  of honey, placement of the eggs ... It's actually amazing how much information you can store on one honeycomb.'

     He  looked at their faces. 'And it's  very secure because anyone trying to tamper with it will get stung  to death  and Adrian believes that when we shut it down in the summer holidays we should get a nice lot of honey, too.' He coughed again. 'For our ... sand ... wiches,' he said.

     He felt himself getting smaller and hotter under their gazes.

     Hex came to his rescue. The hourglass  bounced away  and  the quill pen was jerked in and out of its inkwell.

     +++ Yes. Sloshing Around. Accreting +++

     'That  means forming around new centres,  Archchancellor,' said  Ponder helpfully.

     'I  know that,' said Ridcully.  'Blast.  Remember  when we had all that life force all over  the place? A man couldn't call his trousers his own! So ... there's spare belief sloshing around, thank you, and these little devils are taking advantage of it? 'Coming back? Household gods?'

     +++ This Is Possible +++

     'All right, then, so what are people not believing in all of a sudden?'

     +++ Out Of Cheese Error +++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Redo From Start +++

     'Thank you. A simple "I  don't know" would have been sufficient,'  said Ridcully, sitting back.

     'One of the major gods?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

     'Hah, we'd soon know about it if one of those vanished.'

     'It's Hogswatch,' said the Dean. 'I suppose the Hogfather is around, is he?'

     'You believe in him?' said Ridcully.

     'Well, he's for kids, isn't he?' said  the Dean. 'But I'm sure they all believe in him. I certainly did. It wouldn't be  Hogswatch when I was  a kid without a pillowcase hanging by the fire ...'

     'A pillowcase?' said the Senior Wrangler, sharply.

     'Well, you can't get much in a stocking,' said the Dean.

     'Yes, but a whole pillowcase?' the Senior Wrangler insisted.

     'Yes. What of it?'

     'Is it just me, or is  that a  rather greedy and selfish way to behave? In my family we just hung up very small socks,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'A sugar  pig, a toy soldier, a couple of  oranges and that was it.  Hah, turns out people with whole pillowcases were cornering the market, eh?'

     'Shut up and stop squabbling, both  of you,' said Ridcully. 'There must be a simple way to check up. How can you tell if the Hogfather exists?'

     'Someone's  drunk  the sherry,  there's sooty footprints on the carpet, sleigh tracks on the roof and your pillowcase is full of presents,' said the Dean.

     'Hah, pillowcase,' said the Senior Wrangler darkly. 'Hah. I expect your family were the stuck-up  sort  that  didn't  even  open  their  presents  until  after Hogswatch dinner, eh? One  of them with a big snooty  Hogswatch tree in  the hall?'

     'What if ...' Ridcully began, but he was too late.

     'Well?' said the Dean. 'Of course we waited until after lunch...'

     'You know, it really  used to wind  me right up, people with big snooty Hogswatch  trees.  And  I  just  bet  you  had one  of  those  swanky  fancy nutcrackers  like a big thumbscrew,' said the Senior  Wrangler. 'Some people had to make do with the coal hammer out of the  outhouse, of course. And had dinner in the middle  of the  day  instead  of lah-di-dah posh dinner in the evening.'

     'I can't help it if my family had money,' said the Dean, and that might have defused things a bit had he not added, 'and standards.'

     'And  big pillowcases!'  shouted the  Senior Wrangler, bouncing up  and down in rage. 'And I bet you bought your holly, eh?'

     The Dean raised his eyebrows. 'Of course! We didn't go creeping  around the country pinching it out of other people's hedges, like some people did,' he snapped.

     'That's traditional! That's part of the fun!'

     'Celebrating Hogswatch with stolen greenery?'

     Ridcully put his hand over his eyes.

     The  word for  this,  he had heard, was 'cabin fever'.  When people had been  cooped up for too long in  the dark  days of  the winter, they  always tended to get on one another's  nerves, although there was probably a school of thought that would hold that  spending your time in a university with more than five thousand known rooms, a huge library, the best kitchens in the city, its own brewery,  dairy, extensive wine cellar, laundry,  barber shop, cloisters and skittle alley was  testing the definition of 'cooped up' a little. Mind you, wizards could  get  on one  another's nerves  in opposite  corners of a very large field.

     'Just shut up, will you?' he said. 'It's Hogswatch! That's not the time for silly arguments, all right?'

     'Oh, yes  it  is,' said the Chair of Indefinite  Studies glumly.  'It's exactly  the time  for silly arguments. In our family we  were lucky  to get through  dinner without  a  reprise  of  What  A Shame Henry Didn't Go  Into Business  With Our Ron.  Or  Why Hasn't Anyone  Taught Those Kids  To  Use A Knife? That was another favourite.'

     'And the sulks,' said Ponder Stibbons.

     'Oh, the  sulks,' said  the  Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Not a proper Hogswatch without everyone sitting staring at different walls.'

     'The games were worse,' said Ponder.

     'Worse than the kids hitting one another with their toys, do you think? Not a proper Hogswatch  afternoon without  wheels and bits  of broken  dolly everywhere and everyone whining. Assault and battery included.'

     'We had  a  game called Hunt the Slipper,'  said Ponder. 'Someone hid a slipper. And then we had to find it. And then we had a row.'

     'It's not really bad,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. 'I mean, not  proper Hogswatch bad, unless everyone's wearing  a paper  hat. There's always that  bit, isn't  there, when  someone's horrible great-aunt puts on a paper hat and smirks at everyone because she's being so bohemian.'

     'I'd forgotten  about  the paper hats,'  said the  Chair of  Indefinite Studies. 'Oh, dear.'

     'And then later on someone'll suggest a board game,' said Ponder.

     'That's right. Where no one exactly remembers all the rules.'

     'Which doesn't stop someone suggesting that you play for pennies.'

     'And  five minutes later there's two people not speaking to one another for the rest of their lives because of tuppence.'

     'And some horrible little kid...'

     'I know, I  know! Some  little  kid who's been allowed to stay  up wins everyone's money by being a nasty little cut- throat swot!'

     'Right!'

     'Er . . .'  said  Ponder,  who rather  suspected that  he had been that child.

     'And don't forget the  presents,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as  if  reading off some  internal  list of gloom.  'How  ...  how  full  of potential they seem in all that paper,  how  pregnant with possibilities ... and then you open them and basically the wrapping paper was more interesting and  you have to  say  "How thoughtful, that will come  in  handy!' It's not better to give than to receive, in my opinion, it's just less embarrassing.'

     'I've worked out,' said  the  Senior Wrangler, 'that over  the years  I have been a net exporter of Hogswatch presents--'

     'Oh, everyone is,' said the Chair. 'You spend a fortune on other people and what you get when all the  paper is  cleared away is one slipper  that's the wrong colour and a book about earwax.'

     Ridcully sat in  horrified  amazement.  He'd always enjoyed  Hogswatch, every bit of  it. He'd  enjoyed seeing ardent  relatives,  he'd enjoyed  the food,  he'd been good at games like Chase My  Neighbour  Up The  Passage and Hooray Jolly  Tinker. He was  always the first  to don a paper  hat. He felt that  paper  hats lent a special festive air to the occasion. And  he always very carefully read the messages on Hogswatch cards and found time for a few kind thoughts about the sender.