Nationality, moreover, may expand itself until it becomes
affectation, and the development of the century may run wild with your
work, as youth often runs wild. I quite realise the fact that none of
you will be anything real, however much you may believe in yourselves.
But, do what you like, I will not resemble you: I shall keep on the
outside of things, and criticise whatever you produce. To every work
there is attached something that is not right--something that has gone
wrong; and I will ferret that out and find fault with it; and _that_
will be doing _something_!"

And he kept his word; and everybody said concerning this fifth
brother, "There is certainly something in him; he has a good head; but
he does nothing." And by that very means they thought _something_ of
him!

Now, you see, this is only a little story; but it will never end so
long as the world lasts.

But what became of the five brothers? Why, this is _nothing_, and not
_something_.

Listen, it is a capital story.

The eldest brother, he who manufactured bricks, soon became aware of
the fact that every brick, however small it might be, produced for him
a little coin, though this coin was only copper; and many copper
pennies laid one upon the other can be changed into a shining dollar;
and wherever one knocks with such a dollar in one's hand, whether at
the baker's, or the butcher's, or the tailor's--wherever it may be,
the door flies open, and the visitor is welcomed, and gets what he
wants. You see that is what comes of bricks. Some of those belonging
to the eldest brother certainly crumbled away, or broke in two, but
there was a use even for these.

On the high rampart, the wall that kept out the sea, Margaret, the
poor woman, wished to build herself a little house. All the faulty
bricks were given to her, and a few perfect ones into the bargain, for
the eldest brother was a good-natured man, though he certainly did not
achieve anything beyond the manufacture of bricks. The poor woman put
together the house for herself. It was little and narrow, and the
single window was quite crooked. The door was too low, and the
thatched roof might have shown better workmanship. But after all it
was a shelter; and from the little house you could look far across the
sea, whose waves broke vainly against the protecting rampart on which
it was built. The salt billows spurted their spray over the whole
house, which was still standing when he who had given the br