Chapterlisting
Once upon a time there was this annoying little boy. He was roughly seven years old, and really quite the brattish sort. He wasn't a prince, or a duke's son or anything fancy like that. Just a plain old snotnosed brat. One thing he was, though, was intelligent. And that's why people always came to him for help, even if they couldn't actually stand him all that much.
And the strange thing is, he was always incredibly helpful to anyone who asked. He just didn't go about it all too nicely. He was rude, often insulted the people who asked for his help, and never quite got the concept of humility.
One day there was an old man who came to him and faced him with a problem. You see, the old man had a grandson who also wasn't too nice, and had attitude problems. So, the old man asked the little brat how he could make sure the disobedient grandson behaved a little better.
This was an issue the brat hadn't yet encountered, so in his usual manner he told the old man to go about his business while he reflected on this problem. Now, the brat was only seven years old, so he didn't have much patience in the matter, and was quickly distracted by other things.
A week later, the man returned to the brat, asking if he'd found an answer in dealing with his grandchild. The little brat suddenly remembered the old man asking this before, so he quickly thought up an answer, eventhough he hadn't really thought about it all that much since then. After a moment of silence, the brat answered the old man: "You know, I'm fairly sure your grandson will be nicer to others if you tell him that being nice to others means they'll be nicer to you."
The old man nodded, and replied that that's something many had tried to do. Naturally, the little brat told him to just try and tell him again, because it really was the only thing he could think of.