It was half from shame, to recover from the self-ridicule of this unaccomplished idea, that he plunged into a great public reading-room, where he sat down to recover himself. True, he had not done anything to be ashamed of, but the intention was so vivid that he felt as if he had done it, and threw himself into a seat in a tremor of excitement, his heart beating exactly as if he had carried that wild fancy into action. By-and-by, when he recovered himself, he turned over a newspaper or two mechanically, not knowing what he was doing, and feeling a confused calm in this atmosphere--the quiet which was in the heart of the tumult, a noiseless room within and the roar of the traffic and the multitude without. While he thus sat in a kind of half-dazed condition his eye fell upon a large thick volume, which was the directory of the town. It seemed to him that an expedient more possible, more practicable, was here afforded to him. He got up hurriedly, and turned it over, finding without difficulty the name of a number of Mays. It was a May who was the Mayor even. If he had asked the merchants in the Exchange, there was no doubt this was what they would have thought he meant. Then John went out again, and went straight to the Town Hall, which had been pointed out to him, and which was close to the Exchange. He went, not knowing very well what he was doing; and though he was shy by nature, not venturesome, pushed his way through the town officers and officials, and asked to see the Mayor. To see the Mayor! Had he gone to Windsor Castle and asked to see the Queen, it would have been only a little less reasonable. What did he want with the Mayor? It was only when this question was asked him by a person of commanding presence and still more commanding costume, of the beadle race, that he came to himself. What did he want with the Mayor? To ask him if he could give any information as to some one of his name who ten years ago or thereabouts had lived in Liverpool (John supposed) and fallen into misfortune? Poor John made a very faltering explanation to the beadle, and shrank away, not without raising suspicions in that functionary, who watched him out of sight with a look which was not complimentary. And it was only then that the boy perceived the foolishness altogether of that fervent resolution of his to leave no stone unturned. What stone was there which he could hope to turn? What could he do? To appeal to the mayor because his name was May! He might just as well, he said to himself, have appealed to the ex-convict who had known some one of the name of May in prison. The one would really have been as sensible as the other, which was to say that both were folly itself. And, short of this appealing to some one, what was he to do?