{"id":"01KG6YH92KMW7PD0VBYPHPEP38","cid":"bafkreieroosec6jpfwhnchmehvlcb3pn2fdst57dp3uvjsdavtxxidbh7a","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1196,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":1105,"text":"Nippers, 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\nSo saying, Turkey rose to his feet and threw his arms into a pugilistic\r\nposition. He was hurrying away to make good his promise, when I\r\ndetained him, alarmed at the effect of incautiously rousing Turkey’s\r\ncombativeness after dinner.\r\n\r\n“Sit down, Turkey,” said I, “and hear what Nippers has to say. What do\r\nyou think of it, Nippers? Would I not be justified in immediately\r\ndismissing Bartleby?”\r\n\r\n“Excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite\r\nunusual, and, indeed, unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may\r\nonly be a passing whim.”\r\n\r\n“Ah,” exclaimed I, “you have strangely changed your mind, then—you\r\nspeak very gently of him now.”\r\n\r\n“All beer,” cried Turkey; “gentleness is effects of beer—Nippers and I\r\ndined together to-day. You see how gentle _I_ am, sir. Shall I go and\r\nblack his eyes?”\r\n\r\n“You refer to Bartleby, I suppose. No, not to-day, Turkey,” I replied;\r\n“pray, put up your fists.”\r\n\r\nI closed the doors, and again advanced towards Bartleby. I felt\r\nadditional incentives tempting me to my fate. I burned to be rebelled\r\nagainst again. I remembered that Bartleby never left the office.\r\n\r\n“Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step around to the Post\r\nOffice, won’t you? (it was but a three minutes’ walk), and see if there\r\nis anything for me.”\r\n\r\n“I would prefer not to.”\r\n\r\n“You _will_ not?”\r\n\r\n“I _prefer_ not.”\r\n\r\nI staggered to my desk, and sat there in a deep study. My blind\r\ninveteracy returned. Was there any other thing in which I could procure\r\nmyself to be ignominiously repulsed by this lean, penniless wight?—my\r\nhired clerk? What added thing is there, perfectly reasonable, that he\r\nwill be sure to refuse to do?\r\n\r\n“Bartleby!”\r\n\r\nNo answer.\r\n\r\n“Bartleby,” in a louder tone.\r\n\r\nNo answer.\r\n\r\n“Bartleby,” I roared.\r\n\r\nLike a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the\r\nthird summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.\r\n\r\n“Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me.”\r\n\r\n“I prefer not to,” he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly\r\ndisappeared.\r\n\r\n“Very good, Bartleby,” said I, in a quiet sort of serenely-severe\r\nself-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some\r\nterrible retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended\r\nsomething of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my\r\ndinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the\r\nday, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.\r\n\r\nShall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that\r\nit soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young\r\nscrivener, by the name of Bartleby, had a desk there; that he copied\r\nfor me at the usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but\r\nhe was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that\r\nduty being transferred to Turkey and Nippers, out of compliment,\r\ndoubtless, to their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was\r\nnever, on any account, to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of\r\nany sort; and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it\r\nwas generally understood that he would “prefer not to”—in other words,\r\nthat he would refuse point-blank.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 10"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGB7ZQ9TDECCV6B9DR6PT","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92GW2JNHG0H2VQF3T9J","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH9P0S4SKS4ZV02D81SQV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.179Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:02.780Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}