The Discworld Series (№20) - Hogfather

'...or maybe the cars spinning round...'

'And perhaps drink a glass of milk' said the oh god.

Ridcully looked nonplussed.

'You really feel better?' he said.

'Oh, yes,' said the oh god. 'I really think I could risk a smile without the top of my head falling off.'

'No, no, no,' said the Dean. 'This can't be right. Everyone knows that a good hangover cure has got to involve a lot of humorous shouting, ekcetra.'

'I could possibly tell you a joke,' said the oh god carefully.

'You don't have this pressing urge to run outside and stick your head in a water butt?' said Ridcully.

'Er ... not really,' said the oh god. 'But I'd like some toast, if that helps.'

The Dean took off his hat and pulled a thaumameter out of the point. 'Something happened,' he said. 'There was a massive thaumic surge.'

'Didn't it even taste a bit ... well, spicy?' said Ridcully.

'It didn't taste of anything, really,' said the oh god.

'Oh, look, it's obvious,' said Susan. 'When the God of Wine drinks, Bilious here gets the aftereffects, so when the God of Hangovers drinks a hangover cure then the effects must jump back across the same link.'

'That could be right,' said the Dean. 'He is, after all, basically a conduit.'

'I've always thought of myself as more of a tube,' said the oh god.

'No, no, she's right,' said Ridcully. 'When he drinks, this lad here gets the nasty result. So, logically, when our friend here takes a hangover cure the side effects should head back the same way—'

'Someone mentioned a crystal ball just now,' said the oh god in a voice suddenly clanging with vengeance. 'I want to see this ...'

It was a big drink. A very big and a very long drink. It was one of those special cocktails where each very sticky, very strong ingredient is poured in very slowly, so that they layer on top of one another. Drinks like this tend to get called Traffic Lights or Rainbow's Revenge or, in places where truth is more highly valued, Hello and Goodbye, Mr Brain Cell.

In addition, this drink had some lettuce floating in it. And a slice of lemon and a piece of pineapple hooked coquettishly on the side of the glass, which had sugar frosted round the rim. There were two paper umbrellas, one pink and one blue, and they each had a cherry on the end.

And someone had taken the trouble to freeze ice cubes in the shape of little elephants. After that, there's no hope. You might as well be drinking in a place called the Cococobana.

The God of Wine picked it up lovingly. It was his kind of drink.

There was a rumba going on in the background. There were also a couple of young ladies snuggling up to him. It was going to be a good night. It was always a good night.

'Happy Hogswatch, everyone!' he said, and raised the glass.

And then: 'Can anyone hear something?'

Someone blew a paper squeaker at him.

'No, seriously ... like a sort of descending note

Since no one paid this any attention he shrugged, and nudged one of his fellow drinkers.

'How about we have a couple more and go to this club I know?' he said.

And then.......

The wizards leaned back, and one or two of them grimaced.

Only the oh god stayed glued to the glass, face contorted in a vicious smile.

'We have eructation!' he shouted, and punched the air. 'Yes! Yes! Yes! The worm is on the other boot now, eh? Hah! How do you like them apples, huh?'

'Well, mainly apples—' said the Dean.

'Looked like a lot of other things to me,' said Ridcully. 'It seems we have reversed the cause-effect flow . . .'

'Will it be permanent?' said the oh god hopefully.

'I shouldn't think so. After all, you are the God of Hangovers. It'll probably just reverse itself again when the potion wears off.'

'Then I may not have much time. Bring me ... let's see ... twenty pints of lager, some pepper vodka and a bottle of coffee liqueur! With an umbrella in it! Let's see how he enjoys that, Mr You've Cot Room For Another One In There!'

Susan grabbed his hand and pulled him over to a bench.

'I didn't have you sobered up just so you could go on a binge!' she said.

He blinked at her. 'You didn't?'

'I want you to help me!'

'Help you what?'

'You said you'd never been human before, didn't you?'

'Er ...' The oh god looked down at himself. 'That's right,' he said. 'Never.'

'You've never incarnated?' said Ridcully.

'Surely that's a rather personal question, isn't it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

'That's ... right,' said the oh god. 'Odd, that. I remember always having headaches ... but never having a head. That can't be right, can it?'

'You existed in potentia?' said Ridcully.

'Did what?'

'Did he?' said Susan.

Ridcully paused. 'Oh dear,' he said. 'I think I did it, didn't I? I said something to young Stibbons about drinking and hangovers, didn't I ... ?'

'And you created him just like that?' said the Dean. 'I find that very hard to believe, Mustrum. Hah! Out of thin air? I suppose we can all do that, can we? Anyone care to think up some new pixie?'

'Like the Hair Loss Fairy?' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The other wizards laughed.

'I am not losing my hair!' snapped the Dean. 'It is just very finely spaced.'

'Half on your head and half on your hairbrush,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'No sense in bein' bashful about goin' bald,' said Ridcully evenly. 'Anyway, you know what they say about bald men, Dean.'

'Yes, they say, "Look at him, he's got no hair,"' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The Dean had been annoying him lately.

'For the last time,' shouted the Dean, 'I am not...'

He stopped.

There was a glingleglingleglingle noise.

'I wish I knew where that was coming from,' said Ridcully.

'Er . . .' the Dean began. 'Is there ... something on my head?'

The other wizards stared.

Something was moving under his hat.

Very carefully, he reached up and removed it.

The very small gnome sitting on his head had a chimp of the Dean's hair in each hand. It blinked guiltily in the light.

'Is there a problem?' it said.

'Get it off me!' the Dean yelled.

The wizards hesitated. They were all vaguely aware of the theory that very small creatures could pass on diseases, and while the gnome was larger than such creatures were generally thought to be, no one wanted to catch Expanding Scalp Sickness.

Susan grabbed it.

'Are you the Hair Loss Fairy?' she said.

`Apparently,' said the gnome, wriggling in her grip.

The Dean ran his hands desperately through his hair.

'What have you been doing with my hair?' he demanded.

'Welt some of it I think I have to put on hairbrushes,' said the gnome, 'but sometimes I think I weave it into little mats to block up the bath with.'

'What do you mean, you think?' said Ridcully.

'Just a minute,' said Susan. She turned to the oh god. 'Where exactly were you before I found you in the snow?'

'Er ... sort of ... everywhere, I think,' said the oh god. 'Anywhere where drink had been consumed in beastly quantities some time previously, you could say.'

'Ah-ha,' said Ridcully. 'You were an immanent vital force, yes?'

'I suppose I could have been,' the oh god conceded.

'And when we joked about the Hair Loss Fairy it suddenly focused on the Dean's head,' said Ridcully, 'where its operations have been noticeable to all of us in recent months although of course we have been far too polite to pass comment on the subject.'

'You're calling things into being,' said Susan.

'Things like the Give the Dean a Huge Bag of Money Goblin?' said the Dean, who could think very quickly at times. He looked around hopefully. 'Anyone hear any fairy tinkling?'

'Do you often get given huge bags of money, sir?' said Susan.

'Not on what you'd call a daily basis, no,' said the Dean. 'But if...'

'Then there probably isn't any occult room for a Huge Bags of Money Goblin,' said Susan.

'I personally have always wondered what happens to my socks,' said the Bursar cheerfully. 'You know how there's always one missing? When I was a lad I always thought that something was taking them . . .'

The wizards gave this some thought. Then they all heard it — the little crinkly tinkling noise of magic taking place.

The Archchancellor pointed dramatically skywards.

'To the laundry!' he said.

'It's downstairs, Ridcully,' said the Dean.

'Down to the laundry!'

'And you know Mrs Whitlow doesn't like us going in there,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

'And who is Archchancellor of this University, may I ask?' said Ridcully. 'Is it Mrs Whitlow? I don't think so! Is it me? Why, how amazing, I do believe it is!'

'Yes, but you know what she can be like,' said the Chair.

'Er, yes, that's true...' Ridcully began.

'I believe she's gone to her sister's for the holiday,' said the Bursar.

'We certainly don't have to take orders from any kind of housekeeper!' said the Archchancellor. 'To the laundry!'

The wizards surged out excitedly, leaving Susan, the oh god, the Verruca Gnome and the Hair Loss Fairy.

'Tell me again who those people were,' said the oh god.

'Some of the cleverest men in the world,' said Susan.

'And I'm sober, am I? But I'm not getting...'

'Clever isn't the same as sensible,' said Susan, 'and they do say that if you wish to walk the path to wisdom then for your first step you must become as a small child.'

'Do you think they've heard about the second step?'

Susan sighed. 'Probably not, but sometimes they fall over it while they're running around shouting.'

'Ah.' The oh god looked around. 'Do you think they have any soft drinks here?' he said.

The path to wisdom does, in fact, begin with a single step.

Where people go wrong is in ignoring all the thousands of other steps that come after it. They make the single step of deciding to become one with the universe, and for some reason forget to take the logical next step of living for seventy years on a mountain and a daily bowl of rice and yak-butter tea that would give it any kind of meaning. While evidence says that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, they're probably all on first steps.

The Dean was always at his best at times like this. He led the way between the huge, ardent copper vats, prodding with his staff into dark corners and going 'Hut! Hut!' under his breath.

'Why would it turn up 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.

'Hall!' 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.

'Welt 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 tip 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 backwards.

... 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 storeys 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 dean 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.

ON 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.'

REALLY? WELL, 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 ...

AND I THINK I'VE GOT THE LAUGH WORKING REALLY WELL NOW. HO. HO. HO.

'Yeah, sir, very jolly,' said Albert. He looked down at the list. 'Still, work goes on, eh? The next one's pretty dose, master, so I should keep them down low if I was you.'

JOLLY GOOD. HO. HO. HO.

'Sarah the little match girl, doorway of Thimble's Pipe and Tobacco Shop, Money Trap Lane, it says here.'

AND WHAT DOES SHE WANT FOR HOGSWATCH? HO. HO. HO.

'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 as he read.

I EXPECT A DOLL IS ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE. OR A SOFT TOY OF SOME DESCRIPTION. THE SACK SEEMS TO KNOW. WHAT'VE WE GOT FOR HER, ALBERT? HO. HO. HO.

Something small was dropped into his hand.

'This,' said Albert.

OH.

There was a moment of horrible silence as they both stared at the lifetimer.

'You're for life, not just for Hogswatch,' prompted Albert. 'Life goes on, master. In a manner of speaking.'

BUT THIS IS HOGSWATCHNIGHT.

'Very traditional time for this sort of thing, I understand,' said Albert.

I THOUGHT IT WAS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY, said Death.

'Ah, well, yes, you see, one of the things that makes folks even more jolly is knowing there're people who ain't,' said Albert, in a matter-of-fact voice. 'That's how it goes, master. Master?'

NO.

Death stood up.

THIS IS HOW IT SHOULDN'T GO.

The University's Great Hall had been set for the Hogswatchnight Feast. The tables were already groaning under the weight of the cutlery, and it would be hours before any real food was put on them. It was hard to see where there would be space for any among the drifts of ornamental fruit bowls and forests of wine glasses.

The oh god picked up a menu and turned to the fourth page.

'Course four: molluscs and crustaceans. A medley of lobster, crab, king crab, prawn, shrimp, oyster, clam, giant mussel, green-lipped mussel, thin-lipped mussel and Fighting Tiger Limpet. With a herb and butter dipping sauce. Wine: "Three Wizards" Chardonnay, Year of the Talking Frog. Beer: Winkles' Old Peculiar.' He put it down. 'That's one course?' he said.

'They're big men in the food department,' said Susan.

He turned the menu over. On the cover was the University's coat of arms and, over it, three large letters in ardent script:  "E B P"

'Is this some sort of magic word?'

'No.' Susan sighed. 'They put it on all their menus. You might call it the unofficial motto of the University.'

'What's it mean?'

'Eta Beta Pi.'

Bilious gave her an expectant look.

'Yes . . .?'

'Er ... like, Eat a Better Pie?' said Susan.

'That's what you just said, yes,' said the oh god.

'Urn. No. You see, the letters are Ephebian characters which just sound a bit like "eat a better Pie".

'Ah.' Bilious nodded wisely. 'I can see that might cause confusion.'

Susan felt a bit helpless in the face of the look of helpful puzzlement. 'No,' she said, 'in fact they are supposed to cause a little bit of confusion, and then you laugh. It's called a pune or play on words. Eta Beta Pi.' She eyed him carefully. 'You laugh,' she said. 'With your mouth. Only, in fact, you don't laugh, because you're not supposed to laugh at things like this.'

'Perhaps I could find that glass of milk,' said the oh god helplessly, peering at the huge array of jugs and bottles. He'd clearly given up on sense of humour.

'I gather the Archchancellor won't have milk in the University,' said Susan. 'He says he knows where it comes from and it's unhygienic. And that's a man who eats three eggs for breakfast every day, mark you. How do you know about milk, by the way?'

'I've got ... memories,' said the oh god. 'Not exactly of anything, er, specific. just, you know, memories. Like, I know trees usually grow greenend up ... that sort of thing. I suppose gods just know things.'

'Any special god-like powers?'

'I might be able to turn water into an enervescent drink.' He pinched the bridge of his nose. 'Is that any help? And it's just possible I can give people a blinding headache.'

'I need to find out why my grandfather is ... acting strange.'

'Can't you ask him?'

'He won't tell me!'

'Does he throw up a lot?'

'I shouldn't think so. He doesn't often eat. The occasional curry, once or twice a month.'

'He must be pretty thin.'

'You've no idea.'

'Well, then ... Does he often stare at himself in the mirror and say "Arrgh"? Or stick out his tongue and wonder why it's gone yellow? You see, it's possible I might have some measure of influence over people who are hung over. If he's been drinking a lot, I might be able to find him.'

'I can't see him doing any of those things. I think I'd better tell you ... My grandfather is Death.'

'Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.'

'I said Death.'

'Sorry?'

'Death. You know ... Death?'

'You mean the robes, the ...'

'...scythe, white horse, bones . . .. yes. Death.'

'I just want to make sure I've got this dear,' said the oh god in a reasonable tone of voice. 'You think your grandfather is Death and you think he's acting strange?'

The Eater of Socks looked up at the wizards, cautiously. Then its jaws started to work again.

... grnf, grnf ...

'Here, thats one of mine!' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, making a grab. The Eater of Socks backed away hurriedly.

It looked like a very small elephant with a very wide, flared trunk, up which one of the Chair's socks was disappearing.

'Funny lookin' little thing, ain't it?' said Ridcully, leaning his staff against the wall.

'Let go, you wretched creature!' said the Chair, making a grab for the sock. 'Shoo!'

The sock eater tried to get away while remaining where it was. This should be impossible, but it is in fact a move attempted by many small animals when they are caught eating something forbidden. The legs scrabble hurriedly but the neck and feverishly working jaws merely stretch and pivot around the food. Finally the last of the sock disappeared up the snout with a faint sucking noise and the creature lumbered off behind one of the boilers. After a while it poked one suspicious eye around the corner to watch them.

'They're expensive, you know, with the flaxreinforced heel,' muttered the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

Ridcully pulled open a drawer in his hat and extracted his pipe and a pouch of herbal tobacco. He struck a match on the side of the washing engine. This was turning out to be a far more interesting evening than he had anticipated.

'We've got to get this sorted out,' he said, as the first few puffs filled the washing hall with the scent of autumn bonfires. 'Can't have creatures just popping into existence because someone's thought about them. It's unhygienic.'

The sleigh slewed around at the end of Money Trap Lane.

COME ON, ALBERT.

'You know you're not supposed to do this sort of thing, master. You know what happened last time.'

THE HOGFATHER CAN DO IT, THOUGH.

'But ... little match girls dying in the snow is part of what the Hogswatch spirit is all about, master,' said Albert desperately. 'I mean, people hear about it and say, "We may be poorer than a disabled banana and only have mud and old boots to eat, but at least we're better off than the poor little match girl," master. It makes them feel happy and grateful for what they've got, see.'

I KNOW WHAT THE SPIRIT OF HOGSWATCH IS, ALBERT.

'Sorry, master. But, look, it's all right, anyway, because she wakes up and it's all bright and shining and tinkling music and there's angels, master.'

Death stopped.

AH. THEY TURN UP AT THE LAST MINUTE WITH WARM CLOTHES AND A HOT DRINK?

Oh dear, thought Albert. The master's really in one of his funny moods now.

'Er. No. Not exactly at the last minute, master. Not as such.'

WELL?

'More sort of just after the last minute.' Albert coughed nervously.

YOU MEAN AFTER SHE'S...

'Yes. That's how the story goes, master, 's not my fault.'

WHY NOT TURN UP BEFORE? AN ANGEL HAS QUITE A LARGE CARRYING CAPACITY.

'Couldn't say, master. I suppose people think it's more ... satisfying the other way ...' Albert hesitated, and then frowned. 'You know, now that I come to tell someone . .

Death looked down at the shape under the falling snow. Then he set the lifetimer on the air and touched it with a finger. A spark flashed across.

'You ain't really allowed to do that,' said Albert, feeling wretched.

THE HOGFATHER CAN. THE HOGFATHER GIVES PRESENTS. THERE'S NO BETTER PRESENT THAN A FUTURE.

'Yeah, but...'

ALBERT.

'All right, master.'

Death scooped up the girl and strode to the end of the alley.

The snowflakes fen like angel's feathers. Death stepped out into the street and accosted two figures who were tramping through the drifts.

TAKE HER SOMEWHERE WARM AND GIVE HER A GOOD DINNER, he commanded, pushing the bundle into the arms of one of them. AND I MAY WELL BE CHECKING UP LATER.

Then he turned and disappeared into the swirling snow.

Constable Visit looked down at the little girl in his arms, and then at Corporal Nobbs.

'What's all this about, corporal?'

Nobby pulled aside the blanket.

'Search me,' he said. 'Looks like we've been chosen to do a bit of charity.'

'I don't call it very charitable, just dumping someone on people like this.'

'Come on, there'll still be some grub left in the Watchhouse,' said Nobby. He'd got a very deep and certain feeling that this was expected of him. He remembered a big man in a grotto, although he couldn't quite remember the face. And he couldn't quite remember the face of the person who had handed over the girl, so that meant it must be the same one.

Shortly afterwards there was some tinkling music and a very bright light and two rather affronted angels appeared at the other end of the alley, but Albert threw snowballs at them until they went away.

Hex worried Ponder Stibbons. He didn't know how it worked, but everyone else assumed that he did. Oh, he had a good idea about some parts, and he was pretty certain that Hex thought about things by turning them all into numbers and crunching them (a clothes wringer from the laundry, or CWL, had been plumbed in for this very purpose), but why did it need a lot of small religious pictures? And there was the mouse. It didn't seem to do much, but whenever they forgot to give it its cheese Hex stopped working. There were all those ram skulls. The ants wandered over to them occasionally but they didn't seem to do anything.

What Ponder was worried about was the fear that he was simply engaged in a cargo cult. He'd read about them. Ignorant[16] and credulous[17] people, whose island might once have been visited by some itinerant merchant vessel that traded pearls and coconuts for such fruits of civilization as glass beads, mirrors, axes and sexual diseases, would later make big model ships out of bamboo in the hope of once again attracting this magical cargo. Of course, they were far too ignorant and credulous to know that just because you built the shape you didn't get the substance ...

He'd built the shape of Hex and, it occurred to him, he'd built it in a magical university where the border between the real and 'not real' was stretched so thin you could almost see through it. He got the horrible suspicion that, somehow, they were merely making solid a sketch that was hidden somewhere in the air.

Hex knew what it ought to be.

All that business about the electricity, for example. Hex had raised the subject one night, not long after it'd asked for the mouse.

Ponder prided himself that he knew pretty much all there was to know about electricity. But they'd tried rubbing balloons and glass rods until they'd been able to stick Adrian onto the ceiling, and it hadn't had any effect on Hex. Then they'd tried tying a lot of. cats to a wheel which, when revolved against some beads of amber, caused any amount of electricity all over the place. The wretched stuff hung around for days, but there didn't seem any way of ladling it into Hex and anyway no one could stand the noise.

So far the Archchancellor had vetoed the lightning rod idea.

All this depressed Ponder. He was certain that the world ought to work in a more efficient way.

And now even the things that he thought were going right were going wrong.

He stared glumly at Hex's quill pen in its tangle of springs and wire.

The door was thrown open. Only one person could make a door bang on its hinges like that. Ponder didn't even turn round.

'Hello again, Archchancellor.'

'That thinking engine of yours working?' said Ridcully. 'Only there's an interesting little...'

'It's not working,' said Ponder.

'It ain't. What's this, a half-holiday for Hogswatch?'

'Look' said Ponder.

Hex wrote: +++ Whoops! Here Comes The Cheese! +++MELON MELON MELON +++ Error At Address: 14, Treacle Mine Road, AnkhMorpork+++ !!!!! +++Oneoneoneoneoneone +++ Redo From Start +++

'What's going on?' said Ridcully, as the others pushed in behind them.

'I know it sounds stupid, Archchancellor, but we think it might have caught something off the Bursar.'

'Daftness, you mean?'

'That's ridiculous, boy!' said the Dean. 'Idiocy is not a communicable disease.'

Ridcully puffed his pipe.

'I used to think that, too,' he said. 'Now Im not so sure. Anyway, you can catch wisdom, can't you?'

'No, you can't,' snapped the Dean. 'It's not like 'flu, Ridcully. Wisdom is ... well, instilled.'

'We bring students here and hope they catch wisdom off us, don't we?' said Ridcully.

'Well, metaphorically,' said the Dean.

'And if you hang around with a bunch of idiots you're bound to become pretty daft yourself,' Ridcully went on.

'I suppose in a manner of speaking . .

'And you've only got to talk to the poor old Bursar for five minutes and you think you're going a bit potty yourself, am I right?'

The wizards nodded glumly. The Bursar's company, although quite harmless, had a habit of making one's brain squeak.

'So Hex here has caught daftness off the Bursar,' said Ridcully. 'Simple. Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time.' He banged his pipe on the side of Hex's listening tube and shouted: 'FEELING ALL RIGHT, OLD CHAP?'

Hex wrote: +++ Hi Mum Is Testing +++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out Of Cheese Error +++ !!!!! +++ Mr Jelly! Mr Jelly! +++

'Hex seems perfectly able to work out anything purely to do with numbers but when it tries anything else it does this,' said Ponder.

'See? Bursar Disease,' said Ridcully. 'The bee's knees when it comes to adding up, the pig's ear at everything else. Try giving him dried frog pills?'

'Sorry, sir, but that is a very uninformed suggestion,' said Ponder. 'You can't give medicine to machines.'

'Don't see why not,' said Ridcully. He banged on the tube again and bellowed, 'SOON HAVE YOU BACK ON YOUR ... your ... yes, indeed, old chap! Where's that board with all the letter and number buttons, Mr Stibbons? Ah, good.' He sat down and typed, with one finger, as slowly as a company chairman: