myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismission
at once.

The next day I noticed that Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window
in his dead-wall revery. Upon asking him why he did not write, he said
that he had decided upon doing no more writing.

"Why, how now? what next?" exclaimed I, "do no more writing?"

"No more."

"And what is the reason?"

"Do you not see the reason for yourself," he indifferently replied.

I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull and
glazed. Instantly it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence in
copying by his dim window for the first few weeks of his stay with me
might have temporarily impared his vision.

I was touched. I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that of
course he did wisely in abstaining from writing for a while; and urged
him to embrace that opportunity of taking wholesome exercise in the open
air. This, however, he did not do. A few days after this, my other
clerks being absent, and being in a great hurry to dispatch certain
letters by the mail, I thought that, having nothing else earthly to do,
Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry these
letters to the post-office. But he blankly declined. So, much to my
inconvenience, I went myself.