"Certainly I would rather live in an airy house with colonnades than in our dingy cavern, but building would never be in my way.

What a long time it takes to put one stone on another! I am not patient, and when I leave my father I will do something that shall win me fame.

But there are the quarries--" Petrus did not let his companion finish his sentence, but interrupted him with all the warmth of youth, exclaiming: "And do you mean to say that fame cannot be won by the arts of building?
Look there at the blocks and flags, here at the pillars of hard stone.

These are all to be sent to Aila, and there my son Antonius, the elder of the two that you saw just now, is going to build a House of God, with strong walls and pillars, much larger and handsomer than our church in the oasis, and that is his work too.

He is not much older than you are, and already he is famous among the people far and wide.