At last it was seen that the flames must reach St. Paul's Cathedral, and even those who were most careless held their breath at the thought of the destruction of so splendid a building. At that time St. Paul's was being repaired, and the scaffolding round the walls served as fuel for the flames, which leaped upon it and got such hold of it that the very stones became red hot. The roof and the tower of the cathedral were a blaze of fire; soon the lead with which the roof was covered began to melt, and ran down in golden rain from every gutter into the street below. You have perhaps seen in fireworks showers of golden rain, but that was harmless; this was real boiling lead, and if it had struck anyone would have scorched him up. Streaming as it did from that great height, it came down with force, and set everything that it fell on in a blaze. The flames got inside the cathedral, and roared upwards through the staircases as through so many funnels, and then it was seen that the fall of the roof was inevitable. It came at last with a tremendous crash, and showers of sparks shot upwards, lighting up the country for miles around. For the whole of the next day the flames continued, and on into the day after that; and then the wind fell, and the fire burnt with less fury. By this time, too, people had pulled down houses, and made great gaps which could not be bridged over by the flames, and so the Great Fire ceased. A most curious thing was that the fire had begun in the house of a baker in Pudding Lane, and the part where it was finally stopped was at Pye Corner, near Smithfield. It was very odd that both these names should have had to do with eating. No one knows how it began, but the general idea is that a servant-girl who was drying some sheets let them fall into the fire, and then, seeing them flame up, was afraid, and thrust them into the chimney; so the chimney caught fire, and the house, which was very dry and built of wood, flamed up, and the fire spread. But other people say it was done on purpose by a man throwing a light into the house window. Close to the spot where it began was put up later a tall monument, a great column, which is hollow inside, with a staircase to the top, and anyone may go up by paying threepence; and on the summit there is a little platform, which is caged in to prevent people from falling or flinging themselves over. From here there is a fine view of London; you can see the river, and the ships going up and down, and the bridges, and the tall steeples of all the churches built by Sir Christopher Wren for the new London that rose out of the ashes of the old. At the place where the fire is said to have stopped there is the figure of a funny little fat boy put up, and that you can see at Smithfield if you care to go there.