Bartleby, The Scrivener | Page 2

spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to
the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor,
the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern.
At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my
employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third,
Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in the
Directory. In truth they were nicknames, mutually conferred upon each other by my three
clerks, and were deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters. Turkey was
a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age, that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In
the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock,
meridian--his dinner hour--it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued
blazing--but, as it were, with a gradual wane--till 6 o'clock, P.M. or thereabouts, after
which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun,
seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like
regularity and undiminished glory. There are many singular coincidences I have known

in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, that exactly when
Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, at
that critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as
seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutely
idle, or averse to business then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether
too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity
about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon
my documents, were dropped there after twelve o'clock, meridian. Indeed, not only
would he be reckless and sadly given to making blots in the afternoon, but some days he
went further, and was rather noisy. At such times, too, his face flamed with augmented
blazonry, as if cannel coal had been heaped on anthracite. He made an unpleasant racket
with his chair; spilled his sand-box; in mending his pens, impatiently split them all to
pieces, and threw them on the floor in a sudden passion; stood up and leaned over his
table, boxing his papers about in a most indecorous manner, very sad to behold in an
elderly man like him. Nevertheless, as he was in many ways a most valuable person to
me, and all the time before twelve o'clock, meridian, was the quickest, steadiest creature
too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easy to be matched--for these
reasons, I was willing to overlook his eccentricities, though indeed, occasionally, I
remonstrated with him. I did this very gently, however, because, though the civilest, nay,
the blandest and most reverential of men in the morning, yet in the afternoon he was
disposed, upon provocation, to be slightly rash with his tongue, in fact, insolent. Now,
valuing his morning services as I did, and resolved not to lose them; yet, at the same time
made uncomfortable by his inflamed ways after twelve o'clock; and being a man of peace,
unwilling by my admonitions to call forth unseemly retorts from him; I took upon me,
one Saturday noon (he was always worse on Saturdays), to hint to him, very kindly, that
perhaps now that he was growing old, it might be well to abridge his labors; in short, he
need not come to my chambers after twelve o'clock, but, dinner over, had best go home to
his lodgings and rest himself till teatime. But no; he insisted upon his afternoon devotions.
His countenance became intolerably fervid, as he oratorically assured me--gesticulating
with a long ruler at the other end of the room--that if his services in the morning were
useful, how indispensable, then, in the afternoon?
"With submission, sir," said Turkey on his occasion, "I consider myself your right-hand
man. In the morning I but marshal and deploy my columns; but in the afternoon I put
myself at their head, and gallantly charge the foe, thus!"--and he made a violent thrust
with the ruler.
"But the blots, Turkey," intimated I.
"True,--but, with submission, sir, behold these hairs! I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot
or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age--even
if it blot the page--is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old."
This appeal to my fellow-feeling was hardly to be resisted. At all