Hogfather - Terry Pratchett [57]
“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 skyward.
“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?”
“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, ancient 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.
“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,