In the chap­ter titled “By the Riv­er Thames, 1857–8,” the sto­ry fol­lows Arthur, referred to as King Arthur of the Sew­ers and Slums, as he starts his role at the British Muse­um. With a new­found pur­pose, he is intro­duced to the Keep­er of Ori­en­tal Antiq­ui­ties and his assis­tant, Edward, who is every­thing Arthur is not: well-edu­cat­ed, fit, and from a wealthy back­ground. Edward’s polite demeanor con­trasts sharply with Arthur’s self-con­scious­ness, marked by his lack of for­mal edu­ca­tion and the state of his attire.

Upon enter­ing the muse­um, the enor­mi­ty of the task ahead is daunt­ing; Arthur must work with over thir­ty-five thou­sand clay tablets from Mesopotamia, many of which are dam­aged and frag­ment­ed. Despite expec­ta­tions that he would soon quit, Arthur returns day after day, per­ceiv­ing order where oth­ers see chaos. This work is not just labor for him; it becomes an invig­o­rat­ing puz­zle as he aims to uncov­er the sto­ries con­tained with­in the frag­ments, pro­pelling him to delve into the ancient past.

Arthur’s fas­ci­na­tion inten­si­fies as he begins to relate to the orig­i­nal cre­ators of the tablets, envi­sion­ing their strug­gles and expe­ri­ences. He finds humor­ous and poignant inscrip­tions that reveal human emo­tions and frus­tra­tions, indi­cat­ing the time­less uni­ver­sal­i­ty of human expe­ri­ence. Each suc­cess­ful deci­pher­ing of a tablet becomes an enlight­en­ing moment for Arthur, and the mun­dane records of trans­ac­tions trans­form into a mirac­u­lous link to ancient lives.

As Arthur per­se­veres with these tablets, the British Muse­um also under­goes a trans­for­ma­tion, shift­ing from a chaot­ic col­lec­tion of items to a more struc­tured and aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly focused insti­tu­tion. Arthur, at first an out­sider, dis­cov­ers that the field of Mesopotami­an stud­ies lacks the hier­ar­chi­cal struc­ture of his peers’ fields, offer­ing him a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­tribute and grow in knowl­edge equal­ly.

How­ev­er, chal­lenges arise; his home life dete­ri­o­rates, lead­ing to evic­tion notices and cramped liv­ing con­di­tions. As Arthur becomes increas­ing­ly disheveled, con­cerns about his job secu­ri­ty mount. His par­ents are over­whelmed by their strug­gles, exac­er­bat­ed by his father’s issues with drink­ing and his mother’s declin­ing health.

Amidst the per­son­al tur­moil, Arthur makes a for­tu­itous dis­cov­ery in a tablet that hints at poetry—an extra­or­di­nary rev­e­la­tion that inspires a deep­er ded­i­ca­tion to his work. This new­found pas­sion helps him secure a full-time posi­tion at the muse­um, where he vows to piece togeth­er and pre­serve the voic­es of the past. In doing so, he finds his pur­pose: tend­ing to what his­to­ry has dis­card­ed, much like the flow­ing Riv­er Thames that sym­bol­izes con­ti­nu­ity and remem­brance .