Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my
law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly
_nonchalance_, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strange
effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and
did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion
against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it
was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but
unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a
sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate
to him, and order him away from his own premises. Furthermore, I was
full of uneasiness as to what Bartleby could possibly be doing in my
office in his shirt sleeves, and in an otherwise dismantled condition of
a Sunday morning. Was any thing amiss going on? Nay, that was out of
the question. It was not to be thought of for a moment that Bartleby
was an immoral person. But what could he be doing there?--copying? Nay
again, whatever might be his eccentricities, Bartleby was an eminently
decorous person. He would be the last man to sit down to his desk in
any state approaching to nudity. Besides, it was Sunday; and there was
something about Bartleby that forbade the supposition that he would by
any secular occupation violate the proprieties of the day.

Nevertheless, my mind was not pacified; and full of a restless
curiosity, at last I returned to the door. Without hindrance I inserted
my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. I looked
round anxiously, peeped behind his screen; but it was very plain that he
was gone. Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an
indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my
office, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed. The cushioned seat
of a rickety old sofa in one corner bore the faint impress of a lean,
reclining form. Rolled away under his desk, I found a blanket; under