Some few days after this, I again obtained admission to the Tombs, and went through the corridors in quest of Bartleby; but without finding him.

“I saw him coming from his cell not long ago,” said a turnkey, “may be he’s gone to loiter in the yards.”

So I went in that direction.

“Are you looking for the silent man?” said another turnkey, passing me.  “Yonder he lies—­sleeping in the yard there.  ’Tis not twenty minutes since I saw him lie down.”

The yard was entirely quiet.  It was not accessible to the common prisoners.  The surrounding walls, of amazing thickness, kept off all sounds behind them.  The Egyptian character of the masonry weighed upon me with its gloom.  But a soft imprisoned turf grew under foot.  The heart of the eternal pyramids, it seemed, wherein, by some strange magic, through the clefts, grass-seed, dropped by birds, had sprung.

Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby.  But nothing stirred.  I paused; then went 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,