Hogfather

here?” whispered the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    “Point of reality instability,” said Ridcully, standing on tiptoe to look into a bleaching cauldron. “Every damn thing turns up here. You should know that by now.”
    “But why now ?” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.
    “No talking!” hissed the Dean, and leapt out into the next alleyway, staff held protectively in front of him.
    “Hah!” he screamed, and then looked disappointed.
    “Er, how big would this sock-stealing thing be?” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “Don’t know,” said Ridcully. He peered behind a stack of washboards. “Come to think of it, I must’ve lost a ton of socks over the years.”
    “Me too,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    “So…should we be looking in small places or very large places?” the Senior Wrangler went on, in the voice of one whose train of thought has just entered a long dark tunnel.
    “Good point,” said Ridcully. “Dean, why do you keep referring to sheds all the time?”
    “It’s ‘hut,’ Mustrum,” said the Dean. “It means…it means…”
    “Small wooden building?” Ridcully suggested.
    “Well, sometimes, agreed, but other times…well, you just have to say ‘hut.’”
    “This sock creature…does it just steal them, or does it eat them?” said the Senior Wrangler.
    “Valuable contribution, that man,” said Ridcully, giving up on the Dean. “Right, pass the word along: no one is to look like a sock, understand?”
    “How can you—” the Dean began, and stopped.
    They all heard it.
    … grnf, grnf, grnf …
    It was a busy sound, the sound of something with a serious appetite to satisfy.
    “The Eater of Socks,” moaned the Senior Wrangler, with his eyes shut.
    “How many tentacles would you expect it to have?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “I mean, roughly speaking?”
    “It’s a very large sort of noise, isn’t it?” said the Bursar.
    “To the nearest dozen, say,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, edging backward.
    … grnf, grnf, grnf …
    “It’d probably tear our socks off as soon as look at us…” wailed the Senior Wrangler.
    “Ah. So at least five or six tentacles, then, would you say?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    “Seems to me it’s coming from one of the washing engines,” said the Dean.
    The engines were each two stories high, and usually only used when the University’s population soared during term time. A huge treadmill connected to a couple of big bleached wooden paddles in each vat, which were heated via the fireboxes underneath. In full production the washing engines needed at least half a dozen people to manhandle the loads, maintain the fires and oil the scrubbing arms. Ridcully had seen them at work once, when it had looked like a picture of a very clean and hygienic hell, the kind of place soap might go to when it died.
    The Dean stopped by the door to the boiler area.
    “Something’s in here,” he whispered. “Listen!”
    … grnf …
    “It’s stopped! It knows we’re here!” he hissed. “All right? Ready? Hut!”
    “No!” squeaked the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
    “I’ll open the door and you be ready to stop it! One…two… three ! Oh…”

The sleigh soared into the snowy sky.
    O N THE WHOLE , I THINK THAT WENT VERY WELL, DON’T YOU ?
    “Yes, master,” said Albert.
    I WAS RATHER PUZZLED BY THE LITTLE BOY IN THE CHAIN MAIL, THOUGH .
    “I think that was a Watchman, master.”
    R EALLY ? W ELL, HE WENT AWAY HAPPY, AND THAT’S THE MAIN THING .
    “Is it, master?” There was worry in Albert’s voice. Death’s osmotic nature tended to pick up new ideas altogether too quickly. Of course, Albert understood why they had to do all this, but the master…well, sometimes the master lacked the necessary mental equipment to work out what should be true and what shouldn’t…
    A ND I THINK I’ VE GOT THE LAUGH WORKING REALLY WELL NOW . H O . H O . H O .
    “Yeah, sir, very jolly,” said Albert. He looked down at the list. “Still, work goes on, eh? The next one’s pretty close, master, so I should keep them down low if I was you.”
    J OLLY GOOD . H O . H O . H O .
    “Sarah the little match girl, doorway of Thimble’s Pipe and Tobacco Shop, Money Trap Lane, it says here.”
    A ND WHAT DOES SHE WANT FOR H OGSWATCH ? H O . H O . H O .
    “Dunno. Never sent a letter. By the way, just a tip, you don’t have to say ‘Ho, ho, ho’ all the time, master. Let’s see…It says here…” Albert’s lips moved