Hogfather Read Online Free PDF

somewhere. * None of the five belonged to any formal guild and they generally found their clients among those people who, for their own dark reasons, didn’t want to put the guilds to any trouble, sometimes because they were guild members themselves. They had plenty of work. There was always something that needed transferring from A to B or, of course, to the bottom of the C.
    “Any minute now,” said Peachy, as the waiter brought their beers.
    Banjo cleared his throat. This was a sign that another thought had arrived.
    “What I don’ unnerstan,” he said, “is…”
    “Yes?” said his brother. †
    “What I don’ unnerstan is, how longaz diz place had waiters?”
    “Good evening,” said Teatime, putting down the tray.
    They stared at him in silence.
    He gave them a friendly smile.
    Peachy’s huge hand slapped the table.
    “You crept up on us, you little—” he began.
    Men in their line of business develop a certain prescience. Medium Dave and Catseye, who were sitting on either side of Peachy, leaned away nonchalantly.
    “Hi!” said Teatime. There was a blur, and a knife shuddered in the table between Peachy’s thumb and index finger.
    He looked down at it in horror.
    “My name’s Teatime,” said Teatime. “Which one are you?”
    “’m…Peachy,” said Peachy, still staring at the vibrating knife.
    “That’s an interesting name,” said Teatime. “Why are you called Peachy, Peachy?”
    Medium Dave coughed.
    Peachy looked up into Teatime’s face. The glass eye was a mere ball of faintly glowing gray. The other eye was a little dot in a sea of white. Peachy’s only contact with intelligence had been to beat it up and rob it whenever possible, but a sudden sense of self-preservation glued him to his chair.
    “’cos I don’t shave,” he said.
    “Peachy don’t like blades, mister,” said Catseye.
    “And do you have a lot of friends, Peachy?” said Teatime.
    “Got a few, yeah…”
    With a sudden whirl of movement that made the men start, Teatime spun away, grabbed a chair, swung it up to the table and sat down on it. Three of them had already got their hands on their swords.
    “I don’t have many,” he said, apologetically. “Don’t seem to have the knack. On the other hand…I don’t seem to have any enemies at all. Not one. Isn’t that nice?”

    Teatime had been thinking, in the cracking, buzzing fireworks display that was his head. What he had been thinking about was immortality.
    He might have been quite, quite insane, but he was no fool. There were, in the Assassins’ Guild, a number of paintings and busts of famous members who had, in the past, put…no, of course, that wasn’t right. There were paintings and busts of the famous clients of members, with a noticeably modest brass plaque screwed somewhere nearby, bearing some unassuming little comment like “Departed this vale of tears on Grune 3, Year of the Sideways Leech, with the assistance of the Hon. K. W. Dobson (Viper House).” Many fine old educational establishments had dignified memorials in some hall listing the Old Boys who had laid down their lives for monarch and country. The Guild’s was very similar, except for the question of whose life had been laid.
    Every Guild member wanted to be up there somewhere. Because getting up there represented immortality. And the bigger your client, the more incredibly discreet and restrained would be the little brass plaque, so that everyone couldn’t help but notice your name.
    In fact, if you were very, very renowned, they wouldn’t even have to write down your name at all…
    The men around the table watched him. It was always hard to know what Banjo was thinking, or even if he was thinking at all, but the other four were thinking along the lines of: bumptious little twit, like all Assassins. Thinks he knows it all. I could take him down one-handed, no trouble. But…you hear stories. Those eyes give me the creeps…
    “So what’s the job?” said Chickenwire.
    “We