As I walked home in a pensive mood, my vanity got the better of my pity.
I could not but highly plume myself on my masterly management in getting
rid of Bartleby. Masterly I call it, and such it must appear to any
dispassionate thinker. The beauty of my procedure seemed to consist in
its perfect quietness. There was no vulgar bullying, no bravado of any
sort, no choleric hectoring, and striding to and fro across the
apartment, jerking out vehement commands for Bartleby to bundle himself
off with his beggarly traps. Nothing of the kind. Without loudly
bidding Bartleby depart--as an inferior genius might have done--I
_assumed_ the ground that depart he must; and upon that assumption built
all I had to say. The more I thought over my procedure, the more I was
charmed with it. Nevertheless, next morning, upon awakening, I had my
doubts,--I had somehow slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the
coolest and wisest hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the
morning. My procedure seemed as sagacious as ever.--but only in theory.
How it would prove in practice--there was the rub. It was truly a
beautiful thought to have assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all,
that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartleby's. The great
point was, not whether I had assumed that he would quit me, but whether
he would prefer so to do. He was more a man of preferences than
assumptions.

After breakfast, I walked down town, arguing the probabilities _pro_ and
_con_. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, and
Bartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next moment
it seemed certain that I should see his chair empty. And so I kept
veering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal-street, I saw quite
an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.

"I'll take odds he doesn't," said a voice as I passed.