of the shells of various sorts of nuts.  Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell.  Not the least among the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged with the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for Turkey and Nippers.  Copying law papers being proverbially dry, husky sort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths very often with Spitzenbergs to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the Custom House and Post Office.  Also, they sent Ginger Nut very frequently for that peculiar cake—­small, flat, round, and very spicy—­after which he had been named by them.  Of a cold morning when business was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as if they were mere wafers—­indeed they sell them at the rate of six or eight for a penny—­the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of the crisp particles in his mouth.  Of all the fiery afternoon blunders and flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a ginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage for a seal.  I came within an ace of dismissing him then.  But he mollified me by making an oriental bow, and saying—­“With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationery on my own account.”

Now my original business—­that of a conveyancer and title hunter, and drawer-up of recondite documents of all sorts—­was considerably increased by receiving the master’s office.  There was now great work for scriveners.  Not only must I push the clerks already with me, but I must have additional help.  In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer.  I can see that figure now—­pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!  It was Bartleby.

After a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers.

I should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my premises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners, the other by myself.  According to my humor I threw open these doors, or closed them.  I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done.  I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light.  Within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far above, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a dome.  Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice.  And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined.