So we will go to this solid massive building across the wide space of gravel in front, where the pigeons wheel round our heads and run about on the ground almost under our feet, up the wide, shallow steps under the huge columns into the great entrance-hall. It is all free. The smallest child and the most important man can walk in there alike without anyone's asking questions. As we stand in the entrance-hall there is a wide staircase on one side, and in front of us are swinging glass doors leading by a passage to a great room called the reading-room. To go into this room it is necessary to get permission from the attendants in the hall, who make you sign your name on a piece of paper. Once inside, the size of the vast room almost takes your breath away. There is a great dome ceiling, and the walls are lined with books; there are shelves upon shelves, and thousands and thousands of them. In the middle of the room is a circular desk, where some men are sitting; and round this desk, again, there are shelves lined with huge books, and all these books are filled with nothing but the names of the other books which are kept at the Museum, and which anyone can see by taking certain precautions. People are allowed to walk in just to see the room, by asking in the hall; but if anyone wants to study here he has to write beforehand for a ticket, then he can go in and look in the catalogue (that is what the big books full of names are called) for the book he wants. He writes it on a slip of paper, and puts on the paper also the number of any seat in the room he has chosen. Then he places the piece of paper in a basket and goes away and waits, perhaps twenty minutes, for the books he wants--for he can ask for any number at one time--and presently a man brings them to him.