re to refuse to do?

"Bartleby!"

No answer.

"Bartleby," in a louder tone.

No answer.

"Bartleby," I roared.

Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the
third summons, he appeared at the entrance of his hermitage.

"Go to the next room, and tell Nippers to come to me."

"I prefer not to," he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly
disappeared.

"Very good, Bartleby," said I, in a quiet sort of serenely-severe
self-possessed tone, intimating the unalterable purpose of some terrible
retribution very close at hand. At the moment I half intended something
of the kind. But upon the whole, as it was drawing towards my
dinner-hour, I thought it best to put on my hat and walk home for the
day, suffering much from perplexity and distress of mind.

Shall I acknowledge it? The conclusion of this whole business was, that
it soon became a fixed fact of my chambers, that a pale young scrivener,
by the name of Bartleby, had a desk there; that he copied for me at the
usual rate of four cents a folio (one hundred words); but he was
permanently exempt from examining the work done by him, that duty being
transferred to Turkey and Nippers, out of compliment, doubtless, to
their superior acuteness; moreover, said Bartleby was never, on any
account, to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and
that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generally
understood that he would "prefer not to"--in other words, that he would
refuse point-blank.

As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby. His
steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry
(except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his
screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all
circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition. One prime thing was
this--_he was always there_--first in the morning, continually through
the day, and the last at night. I had a singular confidence in his
honesty. I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands.
Sometimes, to be sure, I could not, for the very soul of me, avoid
falling into sudden spasmodic passions with him. For it was exceeding
difficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities,
privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations on
Bartleby's part under which he remained in my office. Now and then, in
the eagerness of dispatching pressin