just as much as nothing at all. It is
journeyman's work, and can be done by a machine. No, I would rather be
a bricklayer at once, for that _is_ something real; and that's what I
will be. That brings rank; as a bricklayer one belongs to a guild, and
is a citizen, and has one's own flag and one's own house of call. Yes,
and if all goes well, I will keep journeymen. I shall become a master
bricklayer, and my wife will be a master's wife--that is what _I_ call
something."

"That's nothing at all!" said the third. "That is beyond the pale of
the guild, and there are many of those in a town that stand far above
the mere master artizan. You may be an honest man; but as a 'master'
you will after all only belong to those who are ranked among common
men. I know something better than that. I will be an architect, and
will thus enter into the territory of art and speculation. I shall be
reckoned among those who stand high in point of intellect. I shall
certainly have to serve up from the pickaxe, so to speak; so I must
begin as a carpenter's apprentice, and must go about as an assistant,
in a cap, though I am accustomed to wear a silk hat. I shall have to
fetch beer and spirits for the common journeymen, and they will call
me 'thou,' and that is insulting! But I shall imagine to myself that
the whole thing is only acting, and a kind of masquerade.
To-morrow--that is to say, when I have served my time--I shall go my
own way, and the others will be nothing to me. I shall go to the
academy, and get instructions in drawing, and shall be called an
architect. _That's something!_ I may get to be called 'sir,' and even
'worshipful sir,' or even get a handle at the front or at the back of
my name, and shall go on building and building, just as those before
me have built. That will always be a thing to remember, and that's
what I call something!"

"But I don't care at all for _that_ something," said the fourth. "_I_
won't sail in the wake of others, and be a copyist. I will be a
genius; and will stand up greater than all the rest of you together. I
shall be the creator of a new style, and will give the plan of a
building suitable to the climate and the material of the country, for
the nationality of the people, for the development of the age--and an
additional storey for my own genius."

"But supposing the climate and the material are bad," said the fifth,
"that would be a disastrous circumstance, for these two exert a great
influence!