Error while parsing?

Okay, well, I have decided to learn how to theme for WordPress and hence, been trying to build a simple index page as a start.

However, I seem to be facing a problem. When I type this out:
echo '<a href="'.get_permalink().'">'.the_title().'</a><br />';
I get an output where the post title appears BEFORE the tag when I view the source of the index page.
But when I type this out:

echo '<a href="'.get_permalink().'">';
			echo the_title();
			echo '</a><br />';

It prints it out just perfectly.

Any idea what might be going wrong?