l gentler tone, "come here; I am not going
to ask you to do anything you would prefer not to do--I simply wish to
speak to you."

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

"Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?"

"I would prefer not to."

"Will you tell me _anything_ about yourself?"

"I would prefer not to."

"But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel
friendly towards you."

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my
bust of Cicero, which, as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six
inches above my head.

"What is your answer, Bartleby," said I, after waiting a considerable
time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only
there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

"At present I prefer to give no answer," he said, and retired into his
hermitage.

It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner, on this occasion,
nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm
disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the
undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me.

Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his
behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my
office, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking
at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing
me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this
forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his
screen, I sat down and said: "Bartleby, never mind, then, about
revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply
as far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now, you will help
to examine papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now, that in a
day or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:--say so, Bartleby."

"At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable," was his
mildly cadaverous reply.

Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed
suffering from an unusually bad night's rest, induced by severer
indigestion than common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby.

"_Prefer not_, eh?" gritted Nippers--"I'd _prefer_ him, if I were you,
sir," addressing me--"I'd _prefer_ him; I'd give him preferences, the
stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he _prefers_ not to do now?"

Bartleby moved not a l