'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 snowdrift.  'Here's a whole roast pig! 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?'

     '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 thinkingbrain dog growl.

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

     'Millennium hand and shrimp?'  said Ron, passing the scrap 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.[20] I shouldn't be doing this.

     It's not as if I've hung a stocking up. There'd be some point 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 do 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 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 put them in the sack, didn't you?'

NO.

     'You put them in the sack.'

YES.

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

THEY WERE JUST LYING AROUND.

     'Whole roast pig does not, in my experience, just lie around.'

NO ONE SEEMED TO BE USING THEM, ALBERT.

     'Couple of chimneys ago we were over that big posh restaurant...'

     REALLY? I DON'T REMEMBER.

     'And it seemed to me  you were down there  a bit longer than  usual, if you don't mind me saying so.'

REALLY.

     'How  exactly  were  they just  inverted  comma lying  around  inverted comma?'

JUST... LYING AROUND. YOU KNOW. RECUMBENT.

     'In a kitchen?'

THERE WAS A CERTAIN CULINARINESS ABOUT THE PLACE, I RECALL.

     Albert pointed a trembling finger.

     'You nicked someone's Hogswatch dinner, master!'

     IT'S GOING TO BE EATEN, said Death defensively. ANYWAY, YOU THOUGHT  IT WAS A GOOD IDEA WHEN I SHOWED THAT KING THE DOOR.

     'Yeah,  well,  that was a bit  different,'  said  Albert, lowering  his voice. 'But,  I mean, the Hogfather  doesn't drop down the chimney and pinch people's grub!'

THE BEGGARS WILL ENJOY IT, ALBERT.

     'Well, yes, but...'

     IT WASN'T STEALING. IT  WAS  JUST... REDISTRIBUTION. IT  WILL BE A GOOD DEED IN A NAUGHTY WORLD.

     'No, it won't!'

THEN IT  WILL  BE  A NAUGHTY  DEED  IN A  NAUGHTY WORLD AND  WILL  PASS COMPLETELY UNNOTICED.

     'Yeah, but you might at least have thought about the people whose  grub you pinched.'

THEY HAVE BEEN PROVIDED FOR, OF  COURSE. I AM NOT COMPLETELY HEARTLESS. IN A METAPHORICAL SENSE. AND NOW - ONWARDS AND UPWARDS.

     'We're heading down, master.'

ONWARDS AND DOWNWARDS, THEN.

     There were...  swirls. Binky  galloped easily through them, except that he did not seem to move. He might have been hanging in the air.

     'Oh, me,' said the oh god weakly.

     'What?' said Susan.

     'Try shutting your eyes ...'

     Susan shut her eyes. Then she reached up to touch her face.

     'I'm still seeing. .

     'I thought it was just me. It's usually just me.' The swirls vanished.

     There was greenery below.

     And that was odd.  It was  greenery.  Susan had flown a few  times over countryside, even swamps and jungles,  and there had never been a  green  as green as this. If green could be a primary colour, this was it.

     And that wiggly thing

     'That's not a river!' she said.