Hogfather

at the edge of the crowd by the current of people.
    Someone said, “Top of the evenin’, squire,” and he looked up blearily at the small yet irregularly formed figure that had addressed him thusly.
    “Are you one of the pixies?” he said, after mentally exhausting all the other possibilities.
    “No, sir. I am not in fact a pixie, sir, I am in fact Corporal Nobbs of the Watch. And this is Constable Visit, sir.” The creature looked at a piece of paper in its paw. “You Mr. Crummy?”
    “Crumley!”
    “Yeah, right. You sent a runner to the Watch House and we have hereby responded with commendable speed, sir,” said Corporal Nobbs. “Despite it being Hogswatchnight and there being a lot of strange things happening and most importantly it being the occasion of our Hogswatchly piss-up, sir. But this is all right because Washpot, that’s Constable Visit here, he doesn’t drink, sir, it being against his religion, and although I do drink, sir, I volunteered to come because it is my civic duty, sir.” Nobby tore off a salute, or what he liked to believe was a salute. He did not add, “And turning out for a rich bugger such as your good self is bound to put the officer concerned in the way of a seasonal bottle or two or some other tangible evidence of gratitude,” because his entire stance said it for him. Even Nobby’s ears could look suggestive.
    Unfortunately, Mr. Crumley wasn’t in the right receptive frame of mind. He stood up and waved a shaking finger toward the top of the stairs.
    “I want you to go up there,” he said, “and arrest him!”
    “Arrest who, sir?” said Corporal Nobbs.
    “The Hogfather!”
    “What for, sir?”
    “Because he’s sitting up there as bold as brass in his Grotto, giving away presents!”
    Corporal Nobbs thought about this.
    “You haven’t been having a festive drink, have you, sir?” he said hopefully.
    “I do not drink!”
    “Very wise, sir,” said Constable Visit. “Alcohol is the tarnish of the soul. Ossory, Book Two, Verse Twenty-four.”
    “Not quite up to speed here, sir,” said Corporal Nobbs, looking perplexed. “I thought the Hogfather is s’posed to give away stuff, isn’t he?”
    This time Mr. Crumley had to stop and think. Up until now he hadn’t quite sorted things out in his head, other than recognizing their essential wrongness.
    “This one is an Impostor!” he declared. “Yes, that’s right! He smashed his way into here!”
    “Y’know, I always thought that,” said Nobby. “I thought, every year, the Hogfather spends a fortnight sitting in a wooden grotto in a shop in Ankh-Morpork? At his busy time, too? Hah! Not likely! Probably just some old man in a beard, I thought.”
    “I meant…he’s not the Hogfather we usually have,” said Crumley, struggling for firmer ground. “He just barged in here!”
    “Oh, a different impostor? Not the real impostor at all?”
    “Well…yes…no…”
    “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