The attendant, however, being newly appointed, and being anxious to serve Sir N. H. Nicolas, set about trying to find what was wanted. The first difficulty which presented itself was to make out the ticket, so badly written as almost to defy the eye of a man unaccustomed to the hand. A consultation was held with another attendant (and thus the loss of time of another man added to the former) and the name _Burchett_ being made out, the Catalogue was referred to, and the three entries found as already transcribed. The ticket, let it be remembered, contained only the words "Burchett's History of Transactions at Sea, 8^{o}. fvr 1704," without saying for what period. The first of the three entries began with the words "Memoirs of Transactions at Sea," and related to an 8vo. printed at London in 1703; _Memoirs_ and _History_ are not the same words; yet, as a mistake had occurred, might this not be the book, the date, 1703, being so near to 1704? The second entry was to be sure, of an 8vo. printed at London, in 1704; but then it was not a History of Transactions at Sea; the third entry, besides being a History not of Transactions at Sea, like the _Memoirs_, but only of the most remarkable ones, was a folio, not an 8vo. and printed in 1720, not 1704: It stood, however, in 581 _i_. In doubt which was the book wanted, the attendant not unnaturally supposed it might be the first; but then the entry had no Press-mark which could enable him to ascertain the fact by looking at the book itself: this led him to make a third attendant likewise lose some time to examine into the circumstances; who, knowing more of the Library, (having been longer in it) perceived that this entry was unmarked, because the volume to which it referred had been sold as duplicate of one in the Royal Library, where the preserved copy would be found. The first attendant then transferred the ticket to a fourth well acquainted with the Royal Collection; and this fourth attendant, after all proper enquiries, came to the correct conclusion, that the "Memoirs" were not wanted; but, as he could not say which work was, he returned the ticket to the attendant from whom he had received it. Now there was yet a chance of making out the meaning of the writer of that ticket, and that was to examine the identical copy of the volume of the Catalogue kept in the Reading Room, from which the ticket ought to have been copied, and to see whether all this trouble was caused by an error in it, which might have misled Sir N. H. Nicolas. To ascertain this the attendant went to examine that volume, but with no better result, and he was still unable to discover where the error lay.