{"id":"01KG8AK1E05G0585KVK3KPPJNF","cid":"bafkreib4krveyscki474uv24merwodqun3u6dzj2nafeqvfod6p6vzw7lq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":458,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:51.028Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J1CRGPEZ66W67EZPAMPE","start_line":379,"text":"“I would prefer not to.”\r\n\r\nWith any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful\r\npassion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from\r\nmy presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only\r\nstrangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and\r\ndisconcerted me. I began to reason with him.\r\n\r\n“These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving\r\nto you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is\r\ncommon usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it\r\nnot so? Will you not speak? Answer!”\r\n\r\n“I prefer not to,” he replied in a flute-like tone. It seemed to me\r\nthat while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every\r\nstatement that I made; fully comprehended the meaning; could not\r\ngainsay the irresistible conclusions; but, at the same time, some\r\nparamount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did.\r\n\r\n“You are decided, then, not to comply with my request—a request made\r\naccording to common usage and common sense?”\r\n\r\nHe briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was\r\nsound. Yes: his decision was irreversible.\r\n\r\nIt is not seldom the case that when a man is browbeaten in some\r\nunprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to stagger in\r\nhis own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that,\r\nwonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the\r\nother side. Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he\r\nturns to them for some reinforcement for his own faltering mind.\r\n\r\n“Turkey,” said I, “what do you think of this? Am I not right?”\r\n\r\n“With submission, sir,” said Turkey, with his blandest tone, “I think\r\nthat you are.”\r\n\r\n“Nippers,” said I, “what do _you_ think of it?”\r\n\r\n“I think I should kick him out of the office.”\r\n\r\n(The reader of nice perceptions will here perceive that, it being\r\nmorning, Turkey’s answer is couched in polite and tranquil terms, but\r\nNippers replies in ill-tempered ones. Or, to repeat a previous\r\nsentence, Nippers’ ugly mood was on duty and Turkey’s off.)\r\n\r\n“Ginger Nut,” said I, willing to enlist the smallest suffrage in my\r\nbehalf, “what do you think of it?”\r\n\r\n“I think, sir, he’s a little _luny_,” replied Ginger Nut with a grin.\r\n\r\n“You hear what they say,” said I, turning towards the screen, “come\r\nforth and do your duty.”\r\n\r\nBut he vouchsafed no reply. I pondered a moment in sore perplexity. But\r\nonce more business hurried me. I determined again to postpone the\r\nconsideration of this dilemma to my future leisure. With a little\r\ntrouble we made out to examine the papers without Bartleby, though at\r\nevery page or two, Turkey deferentially dropped his opinion that this\r\nproceeding 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’) 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 every thing 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 any\r\nwhere. 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","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM8RS6TKBH9ZFVQG1EM6","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1CRGPEZ66W67EZPAMPE","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AK1E0Z75XPPT6G9XN7WZ5","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:51.232Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:47:52.619Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}