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Something

His children could boast of their "birth"; and when he died his widow was a lady of standing - that is Something - and his name was on the corner of the street as well as on everybody's lips - that is Something indeed!

Then comes the fourth brother, the genius who had wanted to invent something new and original and have an extra floor on top of that. But that floor gave way once beneath his feet, so that he fell and broke his neck. However, he had a splendid funeral, with music and banners, and flowery obituaries in the newspapers. Three eulogies were spoken over him, one longer than the other, and that would have pleased him, for he had so loved being talked about. Then a monument was erected over his grave - only one story high, but still that is Something!

So now he was dead, along with his three elder brothers. The youngest one, the critic, outlived them all, and that was quite proper, for it gave him the last word, which to him was a matter of great importance. "He has a good head on him," people said. But at last his hour came, too; he died, and his soul went to the gates of heaven. Souls always enter in couples, so there he stood beside another soul, old Mother Margaret from the house by the dike.

"I suppose it is for the sake of contrast that I and this miserable soul should come here at the same time," said the critic. "Well, now, my good woman," he asked, "who are you? Do you also want to go in there?"

The old woman curtsied as well as she could, thinking it was Saint Peter himself who spoke to her. "I am just a poor old soul with no family. Just old Margaret from the house near the dike."

"I see. And what have you done down below?"

"I have done really nothing in the world, nothing at all to warrant my being admitted here. It will be God's mercy, indeed, if I am allowed to pass through this gate."

It bored the critic to stand there waiting, so he felt he must talk about something. "And how did you leave the world?" he asked carelessly.

"How did I leave it?

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