But
thus it often is, that the constant friction of illiberal minds wears
out at last the best resolves of the more generous. Though to be sure,
when I reflected upon it, it was not strange that people entering my
office should be struck by the peculiar aspect of the unaccountable
Bartleby, and so be tempted to throw out some sinister observations
concerning him. Sometimes an attorney having business with me, and
calling at my office and finding no one but the scrivener there, would
undertake to obtain some sort of precise information from him touching
my whereabouts; but without heeding his idle talk, Bartleby would remain
standing immovable in the middle of the room. So after contemplating
him in that position for a time, the attorney would depart, no wiser
than he came.
Also, when a Reference was going on, and the room full of lawyers and
witnesses and business was driving fast; some deeply occupied legal
gentleman present, seeing Bartleby wholly unemployed, would request him
to run round to his (the legal gentleman's) office and fetch some papers
for him.
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