In 1854, Arthur, a four­teen-year-old boy, final­ly gets a chance to vis­it the Great Exhi­bi­tion of the Works of Indus­try of All Nations, held in the mag­nif­i­cent Crys­tal Palace in Syden­ham Hill, after pre­vi­ous­ly being unable to afford the entrance fee. The exhi­bi­tion had been attend­ed by mil­lions and was ini­tial­ly opened in 1851 by Queen Vic­to­ria. On a warm sum­mer day, Arthur, clutch­ing his shilling, joins the crowd mak­ing its way to the palace. Over­whelmed by the throngs of peo­ple and their noise, he finds solace in men­tal­ly mul­ti­ply­ing num­bers to calm his rac­ing heart.

Once inside, he is awestruck by the vast­ness and splen­dor of the exhi­bi­tion, filled with a daz­zling array of exhibits from around the world. As he moves through the gal­leries, he is intro­duced to the cul­tures of dis­tant lands, mar­veling at the exot­ic arti­facts dis­played. The dis­plays rep­re­sent the achieve­ments and crafts of var­i­ous nations, stir­ring a long­ing in him to explore these places in per­son rather than just read about them.

Arthur encoun­ters a vari­ety of prod­ucts, mar­vels at the intri­cate crafts­man­ship of items from coun­tries like India and the Unit­ed States, and finds him­self cap­ti­vat­ed by a stat­ue named *The Greek Slave*, which invites con­trast­ing views from admir­ers and abo­li­tion­ists alike. He observes the beau­ty of the lamas­sus from Nin­eveh, pon­der­ing their his­to­ry and the sto­ries they could tell.

Lat­er, back in the office with Mr. Brad­bury, Arthur dis­cuss­es his expe­ri­ence at the exhi­bi­tion, reveal­ing a new­found desire to explore ancient civ­i­liza­tions. Mr. Brad­bury, notic­ing Arthur’s poten­tial, encour­ages him to vis­it the British Muse­um and see the tablets from Nin­eveh. Despite the boy’s lack of funds and impend­ing respon­si­bil­i­ties at home, Mr. Brad­bury gen­er­ous­ly offers him a treat. Arthur leaves the office, con­tem­plat­ing his choic­es and yearn­ing for a bet­ter future.

How­ev­er, the fol­low­ing day brings tragedy as Arthur dis­cov­ers Mr. Bradbury’s life­less body in the office, hav­ing suc­cumbed to sui­cide. This dev­as­tat­ing rev­e­la­tion leaves Arthur grap­pling with pro­found sad­ness and con­fu­sion over the nature of despair, par­tic­u­lar­ly in some­one who seemed to have it all. As life con­tin­ues, Arthur duti­ful­ly ful­fills his respon­si­bil­i­ties but feels a deep sense of loss and iso­la­tion, with­drawn into him­self as he strug­gles to com­pre­hend the com­plex­i­ty of human emo­tions and the bur­dens of exis­tence .