“Will you, or will you not, quit me?' I now demanded in a sudden passion, advancing close to him.'I would prefer not to quit you', he replied, gently emphasizing the not.”

“Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby, in a singular mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”

“I would prefer not to.”

“I deny their credentials as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the Kingdom of Cetology.”

“They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease in manner, quite self-possessed in company.”

“If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I would, I only had the management of one end of it.”

“It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely fortune--and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am on of those that never take on about princely fortunes, and I am quite content if the world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim sign of the Thunder Cloud.”