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mynext, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply
record the fact that I was not unemployed in myprofession by the late John Jacob Astor, a name which,
I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded andorbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. Iwill freely add that I was not insensible to the lateJohn Jacob Astor’s good opinion.Some time prior to the period at which this littlehistory begins my avocations had been largely increased.
The good old office, now extinct in the Stateof New York, of a Master in Chancery, had been conferred
upon me. It was not a very arduous office, butvery pleasantly remunerative. I seldom lose my temper,much more seldom indulge in dangerous indignationat wrongs and outrages, but I must be permitted
to be rash here and declare that I considerthe sudden and violent abrogation of the office ofMaster in Chancery, by the new Constitution, as apremature act, inasmuch as I had counted upon a
life lease of the profits, whereas I only received thoseof a few short years. But this is by the way.
My chambers were upstairs at No.___ Wall Street.At one end they looked upon the white wall of the
interior of a spacious skylight shaft, penetrating thebuilding from top to bottom.
This view might have been considered rather tamethan otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters
call “life.” But, if so, the view from the other endof my chambers offered at least a contrast, if nothingmore. In that direction, my windows commandedan unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall,
black by age and everlasting shade, which wall requiredno spyglass to bring out its lurking beauties,5
Melvillebut, for the benefit of all nearsighted spectators,was pushed up to within ten feet of my windowpanes.Owing to the great height of the surroundingbuildings, and my chambers’ being on the secondfloor, the interval between this wall and minenot 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 inthe Directory. In truth, they were nicknames, mutually
conferred upon each other by my three clerks,and were deemed expressive of their respective personsor characters. Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman,of about my own age — that is, somewherenot far from sixty. In the morning, one mightsay, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelveo’clock, meridian — his dinner hour — it blazedlike a grate full of Christmas coals; and continuedblazing — but, as it were, with a gradual wane —till six o’clock, P.M., or thereabouts; after which Isaw no more of the proprietor of the face, which,gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to setwith it, to rise, culminate, and decline the followingday, 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 radiantcountenance, just then, too, at that critical moment,began the daily period when I considered his businesscapacities as seriously disturbed for the remainderof the twenty-four hours. Not that he was absolutelyidle or averse to business then; far from it.The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether tooenergetic. There was a st