Something

"I shouldn't care to travel on and on in the beaten track, to be only a copyist. I want to be a genius, cleverer than all of you put together. I want to create a new style, provide the idea for a building suitable to the climate and materials of our country, our national character, and the development of our age; besides, I want to build an extra floor for my own genius!"

"But suppose the climate and materials aren't good," said the fifth. "That will be very unfortunate, since they are of vital importance. As for our national character, to represent that in architecture would be sheer affectation, while the requirements of modern times may cause you to run wild, as youth frequently does. I can see that none of you will ever amount to anything, however much you yourselves think you will. But do as you like; I won't be like you. I shall consider what you do; there's something ridiculous in everything; I'll discover it, and it will be my business to expose it - that will be Something!"

He did as he promised; and people said of this fifth brother, "There's Something in him, certainly; he has plenty of brains, but he doesn't do anything!" But it was just that which made him Something.

This is only a little story, and yet as long as the world exists it will have no end.

But, then, did nothing more become of the five brothers? Listen further now, and you will hear the whole story.

The eldest brother, the brickmaker, found that every brick he made brought him in a small copper coin. It was only copper, but enough of these small copper coins added together could be changed into a bright dollar, and wherever he knocked with this - at the butcher's, the baker's, or the tailor's, yes, everywhere - the door flew open, and he was given what he wanted.

That was the virtue of his bricks. Of course, some of them crumbled or broke in two, but a use was found even for them. You see, old Mother Margaret wanted so much to build herself a little house up by the dike; so all the broken bricks were given to her, and even a few whole ones too, for though he was only a brickmaker, the eldest brother had a generous heart.