{"id":"01KG6YH92GW2JNHG0H2VQF3T9J","cid":"bafkreiacrr7xvr36j4xpmqswwr32l63auxfuyilbnewirexihlrjf7ss7i","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1116,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":1042,"text":"proceeding was quite out of the common; while Nippers, twitching in his\r\nchair with a dyspeptic nervousness, ground out, between his set teeth,\r\noccasional hissing maledictions against the stubborn oaf behind the\r\nscreen. And for his (Nippers’s) part, this was the first and the last\r\ntime he would do another man’s business without pay.\r\n\r\nMeanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but\r\nhis own peculiar business there.\r\n\r\nSome days passed, the scrivener being employed upon another lengthy\r\nwork. His late remarkable conduct led me to regard his ways narrowly. I\r\nobserved that he never went to dinner; indeed, that he never went\r\nanywhere. As yet I had never, of my personal knowledge, known him to be\r\noutside of my office. He was a perpetual sentry in the corner. At about\r\neleven o’clock though, in the morning, I noticed that Ginger Nut would\r\nadvance toward the opening in Bartleby’s screen, as if silently\r\nbeckoned thither by a gesture invisible to me where I sat. The boy\r\nwould then leave the office, jingling a few pence, and reappear with a\r\nhandful of ginger-nuts, which he delivered in the hermitage, receiving\r\ntwo of the cakes for his trouble.\r\n\r\nHe lives, then, on ginger-nuts, thought I; never eats a dinner,\r\nproperly speaking; he must be a vegetarian, then; but no; he never eats\r\neven vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on\r\nin reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution\r\nof living entirely on ginger-nuts. Ginger-nuts are so called, because\r\nthey contain ginger as one of their peculiar constituents, and the\r\nfinal flavoring one. Now, what was ginger? A hot, spicy thing. Was\r\nBartleby hot and spicy? Not at all. Ginger, then, had no effect upon\r\nBartleby. Probably, he preferred it should have none.\r\n\r\nNothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the\r\nindividual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting\r\none perfectly harmless in his passivity, then, in the better moods of\r\nthe former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination\r\nwhat proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the\r\nmost part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways. Poor fellow! thought I, he\r\nmeans no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his aspect\r\nsufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is\r\nuseful to me. I can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances\r\nare he will fall in with some less-indulgent employer, and then he will\r\nbe rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve. Yes.\r\nHere I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend\r\nBartleby; to humor him in his strange willfulness, will cost me little\r\nor nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a\r\nsweet morsel for my conscience. But this mood was not invariable, with\r\nme. The passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me. I felt\r\nstrangely goaded on to encounter him in new opposition—to elicit some\r\nangry spark from him answerable to my own. But, indeed, I might as well\r\nhave essayed to strike fire with my knuckles against a bit of Windsor\r\nsoap. But one afternoon the evil impulse in me mastered me, and the\r\nfollowing little scene ensued:\r\n\r\n“Bartleby,” said I, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare\r\nthem with you.”\r\n\r\n“I would prefer not to.”\r\n\r\n“How? Surely you do not mean to persist in that mulish vagary?”\r\n\r\nNo answer.\r\n\r\nI threw open the folding-doors near by, and, turning upon Turkey and\r\nNippers, exclaimed:\r\n\r\n“Bartleby a second time says, he won’t examine his papers. What do you\r\nthink of it, Turkey?”\r\n\r\nIt was afternoon, be it remembered. Turkey sat glowing like a brass\r\nboiler; his bald head steaming; his hands reeling among his blotted\r\npapers.\r\n\r\n“Think of it?” roared Turkey; “I think I’ll just step behind his\r\nscreen, and black his eyes for him!”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGB7ZQ9TDECCV6B9DR6PT","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92G712Q9KQMKV24GYH2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92KMW7PD0VBYPHPEP38","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.176Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:02.729Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}