slept off the fumes of vanity. One of the coolest and wisest
hours a man has, is just after he awakes in the morning. My procedure
seemed as sagacious as ever--but only in theory. How it would prove in
practice--there was the rub. It was truly a beautiful thought to have
assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that assumption was
simply my own, and none of Bartleby's. The great point was, not whether
I had assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so to
do. He was more a man of preferences than assumptions.

After breakfast, I walked down town, arguing the probabilities _pro_ and
_con_. One moment I thought it would prove a miserable failure, and
Bartleby would be found all alive at my office as usual; the next moment
it seemed certain that I should find his chair empty. And so I kept
veering about. At the corner of Broadway and Canal street, I saw quite
an excited group of people standing in earnest conversation.

"I'll take odds he doesn't," said a voice as I passed.

"Doesn't go?--done!" said I, "put up your money."

I was instinctively putting my hand in my pocket to produce my own, when
I remembered that this was an election day. The words I had overheard
bore no reference to Bartleby, but to the success or non-success of some
candidate for the mayoralty. In my intent frame of mind, I had, as it
were, imagined that all Broadway shared in my excitement, and were
debating the same question with me. I passed on, very thankful that the
uproar of the street screened my momentary absent-mindedness.

As I had intended, I was earlier than usual at my office door. I stood
listening for a moment. All was still. He must be gone. I tried the
knob. The door was locked. Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; he
indeed must be vanished. Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I was
almost sorry for my brilliant success. I was fumbling under the door mat
for the key, which Bartleby was to have left there for me, when
accidentally my knee knocked against a panel, producing a summoning
sound, and in response a voice came to me from within--"Not yet; I am
occupied."

It was Bartleby.

I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in
mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by
summer lightning; at his own warm open window he was killed, and
remained leaning out there upon the dreamy afternoon till some one
touched him, when he fell.

"Not gone!" I murmure