From the centre desk there are other long lines of desks like the spokes of a wheel stretching out from the middle to the sides of the room, and here numbers of people sit reading all day long. It is very interesting that so many people should work so hard. Look at one of them. He is an old clergyman, gray-haired, and with many wrinkles on his face. He is reading books of sermons so that he can preach next Sunday a sermon made up out of the books. Next to him is a young girl dressed very plainly. She has eyeglasses on, and looks severe. She belongs to an office, and has been sent down here to write out some quotations from a book that cannot be got anywhere else than at the Museum. She earns her living by working for the office, and she likes it very much, and would not change her life with another girl who drives about in a carriage dressed in fifty-guinea frocks, and pays calls on rich people, even if she could. Near her there is a dark-skinned man, a negro. What can he want? Perhaps he is working up to pass an examination. And near him is a worn, tired-looking old fellow, who has gone to sleep over his books. He was well-off once and enjoyed his life, and many people were glad to be invited to his house. But he was foolish and lost all his money, and now he comes up and asks for a few books just as a pretence, so that he can sit there in the warmth and comfort for a little while. There are many authors in the room busy making books, books, still more books, out of those that have been already written. When will it stop? A copy of every book that is published has to go to the British Museum. The publishers are bound by law to send a copy here, and so hundreds of books pour in continually; there is no end to them. Even in the days of Solomon it was said: 'Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh.' But the books that were then written were as nothing to those that have since been written, and every year brings forth more than the one preceding. You have noticed that round this vast room the walls are covered with books looking gloomy and grey. But these are only a tiny part of the books stored here. If you ask the attendant in charge he will take you behind those walls, where you will think you have stepped straight into a dream-world, for there are passages and passages all lined with books. You might lose yourself, and wander on and on between streets of books higher than your head for many and many an hour. But the storage of books is not the only difficulty the librarian has. He has to keep copies of all the principal newspapers, too. Now, a newspaper in itself is a little thing, small and thin; but when you think of newspapers by the hundred, newspapers by the thousand, going on growing and accumulating, then you can understand how difficult it must be to find room for them all.