t close up to him;
stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open; otherwise he seemed
profoundly sleeping. Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his
hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my,
feet.

The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. "His dinner is ready.
Won't he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?"

"Lives without dining," said I, and closed the eyes.

"Eh!--He's asleep, ain't he?"

"With kings and counselors," murmured I.

* * * * *

There would seem little need for proceeding further in this history.
Imagination will readily supply the meagre recital of poor Bartleby's
interment. But, ere parting with the reader, let me say, that if this
little narrative has sufficiently interested him, to awaken curiosity as
to who Bartleby was, and what manner of life he led prior to the present
narrator's making his acquaintance, I can only reply, that in such
curiosity I fully share, but am wholly unable to gratify it. Yet here I
hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, which
came to my ear a few months after the scrivener's decease. Upon what
basis it rested, I could never ascertain; and hence, how true it is I
cannot now tell. But, inasmuch as this vague report has not been without
a certain suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the same
with some others; and so I will briefly mention it. The report was this:
that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at
Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the
administration. When I think over this rumor, hardly can I express the
emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men?
Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness,
can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of
continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the
flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from
out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring--the finger it was
meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest
charity--he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon
for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good
tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands
of life, these letters speed to death.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

BENITO