certain squeamishness, of I know not what, withheld me.

All is over with him, by this time, thought I, at last, when, through
another week, no further intelligence reached me. But, coming to my room
the day after, I found several persons waiting at my door in a high
state of nervous excitement.

"That's the man--here he comes," cried the foremost one, whom I
recognized as the lawyer who had previously called upon me alone.

"You must take him away, sir, at once," cried a portly person among
them, advancing upon me, and whom I knew to be the landlord of No. ----
Wall street. "These gentlemen, my tenants, cannot stand it any longer;
Mr. B----," pointing to the lawyer, "has turned him out of his room,
and he now persists in haunting the building generally, sitting upon the
banisters of the stairs by day, and sleeping in the entry by night.
Everybody is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some fears are
entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay."

Aghast at this torrent, I fell back before it, and would fain have
locked myself in my new quarters. In vain I persisted that Bartleby was
nothing to me--no more than to any one else. In vain--I was the last
person known to have anything to do with him, and they held me to the
terrible account. Fearful, then, of being exposed in the papers (as one
person present obscurely threatened), I considered the matter, and, at
length, said, that if the lawyer would give me a confidential interview
with the scrivener, in his (the lawyer's) own room, I would, that
afternoon, strive my best to rid them of the nuisance they complained
of.