him there, standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his face
towards a high wall, while all around, from the narrow slits of the jail
windows, I thought I saw peering out upon him the eyes of murderers and
thieves.

"Bartleby!"

"I know you," he said, without looking round--"and I want nothing to say
to you."

"It was not I that brought you here, Bartleby," said I, keenly pained at
his implied suspicion. "And to you, this should not be so vile a place.
Nothing reproachful attaches to you by being here. And see, it is not so
sad a place as one might think. Look, there is the sky, and here is the
grass."

"I know where I am," he replied, but would say nothing more, and so I
left him.

As I entered the corridor again, a broad meat-like man, in an apron,
accosted me, and, jerking his thumb over his shoulder, said--"Is that
your friend?"

"Yes."

"Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare,
that's all."

"Who are you?" asked I, not knowing what to make of such an unofficially
speaking person in such a place.