rooms, after any little absence, I would pause at the threshold for an
instant, and attentively listen, ere applying my key. But these fears
were needless. Bartleby never came nigh me.

I thought all was going well, when a perturbed-looking stranger visited
me, inquiring whether I was the person who had recently occupied rooms
at No. ---- Wall street.

Full of forebodings, I replied that I was.

"Then, sir," said the stranger, who proved a lawyer, "you are
responsible for the man you left there. He refuses to do any copying; he
refuses to do anything; he says he prefers not to; and he refuses to
quit the premises."

"I am very sorry, sir," said I, with assumed tranquillity, but an inward
tremor, "but, really, the man you allude to is nothing to me--he is no
relation or apprentice of mine, that you should hold me responsible for
him."

"In mercy's name, who is he?"

"I certainly cannot inform you. I know nothing about him. Formerly I
employed him as a copyist; but he has done nothing for me now for some
time past."

"I shall settle him, then--good morning, sir."

Several days passed, and I heard nothing more; and, though I often felt
a charitable prompting to call at the place and see poor Bartleby, yet a