Around the World in Eighty Days, Part 11: The Eightieth Day

7:11:01 Chapter XXXIII: In which Phileas Fogg shows himself equal to the occasion

7:11:01 And meeting Fix, he could not help telling him how matters stood.

7:11:06 Fix: So, you believe we are going to Liverpool!

7:11:10 Jean Passepartout: Parbleu!

7:11:12 Fix: Fool!

7:11:13 replied the inspector, and walked off, shrugging his shoulders.

7:11:18 Passepartout was on the point of taking him up sharply on the epithet, the true meaning of which, moreover, he could not understand.

7:11:26 But he told himself that the unfortunate Fix must be very disappointed and very much wounded in his self-esteem, after following a false scent so clumsily round the world, and he let it pass.

7:11:40 And now what course would Phileas Fogg take? It was hard to imagine.

7:11:45 It appears, however, that the phlegmatic gentleman did decide on one, for that very evening he sent for the engineer and said to him:

7:11:54 Phileas Fogg: Feed the fires and hold on your course until the fuel is completely exhausted.

7:12:04 A few moments later the Henrietta's funnel was belching forth torrents of smoke.

7:12:10 So the ship went on at full steam; but, as he had foretold, two days later, on the eighteenth, the engineer reported that the coal would give out in the course of the day.

7:12:21 Phileas Fogg: The fires are not to be allowed to sink. Quite the reverse. Have the valves loaded.

7:12:28 That day, towards noon, having taken an observation and worked out the ship's position, Phileas Fogg sent for Passepartout and ordered him to go and fetch Captain Speedy.

7:12:40 It was as if the good fellow had been ordered to go and unchain a tiger, and he went down into the poop, saying to himself:

7:12:47 Jean Passepartout: He'll be positively raving!

7:12:51 And indeed, a few minutes later, amid shouts and oaths, a bomb arrived on the poop. This bomb was Captain Speedy. It was evident that it was about to burst.

7:13:03 Captain Andrew Speedy: Where are we?

7:13:04 were the first words he uttered, choking with rage; and certainly, had the worthy man been at all inclined to apoplexy, he would never have recovered from it.

7:13:16 Captain Andrew Speedy: Where are we?

7:13:17 he repeated, his face purple.

7:13:20 Phileas Fogg: Seven hundred and seventy miles from Liverpool,

7:13:23 Three hundred leagues.

7:13:25 replied Mr. Fogg with imperturbable calm.

7:13:29 Captain Andrew Speedy: Pirate!

7:13:30 Phileas Fogg: I have sent for you, sir…

7:13:32 Captain Andrew Speedy: Buccaneer!

7:13:33 Phileas Fogg: …sir, to ask you to sell me your ship.

7:13:36 Captain Andrew Speedy: No! by all the devils, no!

7:13:39 Phileas Fogg: The thing is, I shall be obliged to burn her.

7:13:43 Captain Andrew Speedy: Burn my ship!

7:13:44 Phileas Fogg: Yes, her upperworks at least, for we are short of fuel.

7:13:48 Captain Andrew Speedy: Burn my ship!

7:13:51 cried Captain Speedy, who could no longer even get the syllables out.

7:13:55 Captain Andrew Speedy: A ship that's worth fifty thousand dollars.

7:13:58 Two hundred and fifty thousand francs.

7:14:03 Phileas Fogg: Here are sixty thousand!

7:14:05 Three hundred thousand francs.

7:14:08 replied Phileas Fogg, holding out a bundle of bank-notes to the captain.

7:14:13 This had a prodigious effect on Andrew Speedy. One is not an American without feeling a certain emotion at the sight of sixty thousand dollars. In an instant the captain forgot his anger, his imprisonment, all his grievances against his passenger.

7:14:30 His ship was twenty years old. This might turn into a golden bargain!…

7:14:36 The bomb could no longer burst.

7:14:39 Mr. Fogg had pulled out the fuse.

7:14:43 Captain Andrew Speedy: And the iron hull will be left to me,

7:14:47 he said, in a singularly softened tone.

7:14:50 Phileas Fogg: The iron hull and the engine, sir. Is it a bargain?

7:14:54 Captain Andrew Speedy: Done.

7:14:54 And Andrew Speedy, seizing the bundle of bank-notes, counted them and made them vanish into his pocket.

7:15:02 During this scene Passepartout had turned white. As for Fix, he very nearly had a stroke.

7:15:08 Nearly twenty thousand pounds spent, and this Fogg was even leaving the hull and the engine to the seller—that is to say, almost the whole value of the ship!

7:15:19 It is true that the sum stolen from the Bank amounted to fifty-five thousand pounds!

7:15:27 When Andrew Speedy had pocketed the money:

7:15:30 Phileas Fogg: Sir, do not let all this surprise you. You must know that I lose twenty thousand pounds if I am not in London on the twenty-first of December at eight forty-five in the evening. Now, I had missed the steamer at New York, and as you refused to take me to Liverpool…

7:15:47 Captain Andrew Speedy: And a good thing I did, by the fifty thousand devils of hell, since I make at least forty thousand dollars by it.

7:15:54 Then, more sedately:

7:15:56 Captain Andrew Speedy: Do you know something, Captain…?

7:15:58 Phileas Fogg: Fogg.

7:15:58 Captain Andrew Speedy: Captain Fogg—well, there's something of the Yankee in you.

7:16:03 And having paid his passenger what he believed to be a compliment, he was going away when Phileas Fogg said to him:

7:16:10 Phileas Fogg: This ship now belongs to me?

7:16:12 Captain Andrew Speedy: To be sure, from keel to truck—everything that's 'wood', that is!

7:16:16 Phileas Fogg: Very well. Have the interior fittings pulled down, and stoke the fires with the pieces.

7:16:26 One may judge how much of this dry wood had to be consumed to keep the steam at sufficient pressure.

7:16:33 That day the poop, the deckhouses, the cabins, the quarters, the orlop deck—everything went.

7:16:41 The next day, the nineteenth of December, they burned the top-hamper, the spare booms and the spars.

7:16:48 The masts were cut down and chopped up with axes. The crew set to work with incredible zeal. Passepartout, hewing, cutting, sawing, did the work of ten men.

7:17:00 It was a frenzy of demolition.

7:17:04 The next day, the twentieth, the rails, the bulwarks, the upperworks, the greater part of the deck, were devoured. The Henrietta was now nothing but a vessel razed flat, like a hulk.

7:17:18 But that day the coast of Ireland and the Fastenet light had been sighted.

7:17:23 Even so, at ten o'clock in the evening the ship was only abreast of Queenstown. Phileas Fogg had no more than twenty-four hours left in which to reach London!

7:17:34 And that was the time the Henrietta needed to reach Liverpool—even going at full steam. And steam was at last about to fail the daring gentleman!

7:17:50 Captain Andrew Speedy: Sir,

7:17:51 Captain Speedy then said to him—he had ended by taking an interest in his plans,

7:17:56 Captain Andrew Speedy: I really am sorry for you. Everything is against you! We're only off Queenstown as yet.

7:18:03 Phileas Fogg: Ah! That is Queenstown, the town whose lights we can see?

7:18:07 Captain Andrew Speedy: Yes.

7:18:08 Phileas Fogg: Can we enter the harbour?

7:18:09 Captain Andrew Speedy: Not for three hours. Only at high water.

7:18:13 Phileas Fogg: Let us wait!

7:18:14 replied Phileas Fogg calmly, without letting it show in his face that, by a supreme inspiration, he was about to try once more to overcome adverse fortune!

7:18:27 Queenstown, in fact, is a port on the coast of Ireland where the transatlantic liners coming from the United States drop their mail-bags in passing.

7:18:37 These letters are carried to Dublin by express trains always ready to start. From Dublin they reach Liverpool by high-speed steamers—thus getting twelve hours ahead of the fastest vessels of the shipping companies.

7:18:50 Those twelve hours which the American mail gained in this way, Phileas Fogg meant to gain as well.

7:18:57 Instead of arriving at Liverpool in the Henrietta the next evening, he would be there by noon, and would consequently have time to be in London before eight forty-five in the evening.

7:19:07 Towards one o'clock in the morning the Henrietta entered Queenstown harbour at high water, and Phileas Fogg, after receiving a vigorous handshake from Captain Speedy, left him on the razed carcass of his ship, which was still worth half what he had sold it for!

7:19:24 The passengers landed at once. At that moment Fix felt a fierce desire to arrest the said Fogg. Yet he did not do it!

7:19:33 Why? What struggle, then, was going on within him?

7:19:37 Had he changed his mind about Mr. Fogg? Did he understand at last that he had been mistaken?

7:19:45 Fix, however, did not leave Mr. Fogg. With him, with Mrs. Aouda, and with Passepartout, who no longer took time to breathe, he boarded the Queenstown train at half-past one in the morning, reached Dublin at daybreak,

7:19:59 and at once embarked on one of those steamers—veritable spindles of steel, all engine—which, disdaining to rise to the waves, invariably go straight through them.

7:20:11 At twenty minutes to twelve, on the twenty-first of December, Phileas Fogg at last set foot on the quay at Liverpool.

7:20:19 He was now only six hours from London.

7:20:27 But at that moment Fix came up, put his hand on his shoulder and, producing his warrant:

7:20:32 Fix: You are the man Phileas Fogg?

7:20:35 Phileas Fogg: I am, sir.

7:20:36 Fix: In the Queen's name, I arrest you!

7:20:41 Chapter XXXIV: Which gives Passepartout the chance to make an atrocious pun, though perhaps a new one

7:20:41 Chapter Thirty-four. Which gives Passepartout the chance to make an atrocious pun, though perhaps a new one.

7:20:50 Phileas Fogg was in prison.

7:20:53 He had been shut up in the lock-up of the Custom House at Liverpool, and he was to spend the night there while awaiting his transfer to London.

7:21:01 At the moment of the arrest Passepartout had tried to hurl himself upon the detective. Some policemen held him back. Mrs. Aouda, appalled by the brutality of the event and knowing nothing, could make nothing of it. Passepartout explained the situation to her.

7:21:19 Mr. Fogg, that honest and courageous gentleman to whom she owed her life, had been arrested as a thief. The young woman protested against such an allegation, her heart rose in indignation, and tears flowed from her eyes when she saw that she could do nothing, attempt nothing, to save her saviour.

7:21:40 As for Fix, he had arrested the gentleman because his duty commanded him to arrest him, whether he were guilty or not. The law would decide.

7:21:51 But then a thought came to Passepartout, the terrible thought that he was, beyond all doubt, the cause of this whole misfortune! For why had he hidden this business from Mr. Fogg?

7:22:05 When Fix had revealed both his capacity as a police inspector and the mission with which he was charged, why had he taken it upon himself not to warn his master? Had he been warned, his master would no doubt have given Fix proofs of his innocence; he would have shown him his mistake;

7:22:23 at any rate he would not have carried about, at his own expense and at his own heels, this ill-starred detective, whose first care had been to arrest him the moment he set foot on the soil of the United Kingdom.

7:22:37 As he thought of his faults and his imprudences, the poor fellow was seized with irresistible remorse. He wept; it was pitiful to see him.

7:22:48 He wanted to dash his brains out!

7:22:51 Mrs. Aouda and he had remained, in spite of the cold, under the portico of the Custom House. Neither of them would leave the spot. They wanted to see Mr. Fogg once more.

7:23:04 As for that gentleman, he was well and truly ruined, and at the very moment when he was about to reach his goal. This arrest undid him beyond recall.

7:23:16 Having arrived at Liverpool at twenty minutes to twelve on the twenty-first of December, he had until eight forty-five to present himself at the Reform Club, that is, nine hours and fifteen minutes—and he needed only six to reach London.

7:23:31 Anyone who had entered the Custom House lock-up at that moment would have found Mr. Fogg motionless, seated on a wooden bench, without anger, imperturbable. Resigned one could not have called him, but this last blow had been unable to move him, at least in appearance.

7:23:50 Had there formed within him one of those secret rages, terrible because they are held in check, which burst out only at the last moment with irresistible force? No one knows.

7:24:02 But there Phileas Fogg was, calm, waiting… for what? Did he still cherish some hope? Did he still believe in success, when the door of this prison was shut upon him?

7:24:17 However that may be, Mr. Fogg had carefully placed his watch on a table and was watching its hands move. Not a word escaped his lips, but his gaze had a singular fixity.

7:24:30 In any case the situation was terrible, and, for anyone who could not read that conscience, it could be summed up thus:

7:24:39 Honest, Phileas Fogg was ruined.

7:24:43 Dishonest, he was caught.

7:24:47 Did the thought of escape occur to him then? Did he think of looking to see whether this lock-up offered some practicable way out? Did he think of flight? One would be tempted to believe so, for at one moment he walked round the room.

7:25:02 But the door was firmly locked and the window fitted with iron bars. So he came back and sat down again, and drew the itinerary of the journey from his pocket-book. On the line which bore the words:

7:25:15 Phileas Fogg: December the twenty-first, Saturday, Liverpool.

7:25:18 he added:

7:25:20 Phileas Fogg: Eightieth day, eleven forty in the morning.

7:25:23 and he waited.

7:25:26 One o'clock rang out from the Custom House clock.

7:25:30 Mr. Fogg noted that his watch was two minutes ahead of that clock.

7:25:36 Two o'clock!

7:25:37 Supposing he were to board an express at that moment, he could still reach London and the Reform Club before eight forty-five in the evening.

7:25:45 His brow puckered slightly…

7:25:49 At thirty-three minutes past two a noise rang out outside, a din of doors being opened. Passepartout's voice could be heard; Fix's voice could be heard.

7:25:59 Phileas Fogg's eyes shone for an instant.

7:26:03 The door of the lock-up opened, and he saw Mrs. Aouda, Passepartout and Fix, who rushed towards him.

7:26:10 Fix was out of breath, his hair in disorder… He could not speak!

7:26:15 Fix: Sir, sir… I beg your pardon… a deplorable likeness… Thief caught three days ago… you… free!…

7:26:29 Phileas Fogg was free! He went up to the detective. He looked him full in the face and, making the only rapid movement he had ever made, or ever would make, in his life,

7:26:41 he drew both his arms back and then, with the precision of an automaton, struck the unfortunate inspector with both his fists.

7:26:50 Jean Passepartout: Well hit!

7:26:51 cried Passepartout; and, permitting himself an atrocious pun, quite worthy of a Frenchman, he added:

7:26:59 Jean Passepartout: Pardieu! there's what you might call a fine application of English punch-work!

7:27:05 Fix, knocked flat, did not utter a word. He had only got what he deserved.

7:27:12 But at once Mr. Fogg, Mrs. Aouda and Passepartout left the Custom House. They threw themselves into a cab, and in a few minutes they reached the station at Liverpool.

7:27:24 Phileas Fogg asked whether there was an express ready to leave for London…

7:27:29 It was two-forty… The express had left thirty-five minutes before.

7:27:34 Phileas Fogg then ordered a special train.

7:27:37 There were several high-speed locomotives with steam up; but, owing to the requirements of the traffic, the special train could not leave the station before three o'clock.

7:27:53 At three o'clock Phileas Fogg, having said a few words to the engine-driver about a certain bonus to be earned, was speeding in the direction of London, in company with the young woman and his faithful servant.

7:28:06 The distance between Liverpool and London had to be covered in five and a half hours—a very feasible thing when the line is clear all the way.

7:28:15 But there were unavoidable delays, and when the gentleman reached the station, all the clocks of London were striking ten minutes to nine.

7:28:24 Phileas Fogg, having accomplished this journey round the world, had arrived five minutes late!…

7:28:31 He had lost.

7:28:37 Chapter XXXV: In which Passepartout does not need to be told twice to do what his master bids him

7:28:37 Chapter Thirty-five. In which Passepartout does not need to be told twice to do what his master bids him.

7:28:44 The next day the inhabitants of Saville Row would have been greatly surprised had anyone assured them that Mr. Fogg had returned to his home. Doors and windows were all shut. No change had taken place outside.

7:29:00 After leaving the station, in fact, Phileas Fogg had told Passepartout to buy a few provisions, and had gone home to his house.

7:29:09 The gentleman had received the blow that struck him with his habitual impassiveness. Ruined! and through the fault of that blundering police inspector!

7:29:19 After walking with a sure step the whole length of that long course, after overthrowing a thousand obstacles and braving a thousand dangers, having even found time to do some good along the way,

7:29:32 to be wrecked in port by a brutal fact which he could not foresee, and against which he was defenceless: it was terrible!

7:29:41 Of the considerable sum he had taken with him at the start, only an insignificant remnant was left. His fortune now consisted solely of the twenty thousand pounds deposited with Baring Brothers, and those twenty thousand pounds he owed to his colleagues of the Reform Club.

7:29:59 After so much expense, the winning of the wager would doubtless not have made him richer, and it is probable that he had not sought to enrich himself—being one of those men who bet for honour's sake; but the losing of it ruined him completely.

7:30:15 Moreover, the gentleman's mind was made up. He knew what remained for him to do.

7:30:23 A room in the house in Saville Row had been set apart for Mrs. Aouda. The young woman was in despair. From certain words Mr. Fogg had let fall, she had understood that he was meditating some fatal design.

7:30:38 It is well known, indeed, to what deplorable extremities these monomaniac Englishmen are sometimes driven under the pressure of a fixed idea. And so Passepartout, without seeming to, kept a watch on his master.

7:30:54 But before anything else the honest fellow had climbed to his room and turned off the burner that had been alight for eighty days.

7:31:02 In the letter-box he had found an account from the Gas Company, and it struck him that it was high time to end these charges, for which he was answerable.

7:31:13 The night passed. Mr. Fogg had gone to bed, but had he slept? As for Mrs. Aouda, she could not take a single moment's rest. Passepartout, for his part, had kept watch like a dog at his master's door.

7:31:30 The next day Mr. Fogg sent for him and told him, in very few words, to see to Mrs. Aouda's lunch. For himself, he would be content with a cup of tea and a slice of toast.

7:31:42 Mrs. Aouda would kindly excuse him from lunch and dinner, for all his time was taken up with putting his affairs in order. He would not come down. Only in the evening would he ask Mrs. Aouda's permission to speak with her for a few moments.

7:31:59 Passepartout, having been informed of the programme for the day, had only to conform to it. He looked at his master, impassive as ever, and could not bring himself to leave the room.

7:32:12 His heart was heavy, his conscience racked with remorse, for he blamed himself more than ever for this irreparable disaster. Yes! if he had warned Mr. Fogg, if he had revealed to him the designs of the detective Fix, Mr. Fogg would certainly not have dragged the detective Fix along with him as far as Liverpool, and then…

7:32:34 Passepartout could hold out no longer.

7:32:37 Jean Passepartout: My master! Monsieur Fogg! Curse me. It was through my fault that…

7:32:43 Phileas Fogg: I blame no one,

7:32:45 replied Phileas Fogg in the calmest of tones.

7:32:49 Phileas Fogg: Go.

7:32:51 Passepartout left the room and went to find the young woman, to whom he made known his master's intentions.

7:32:58 Jean Passepartout: Madame, I can do nothing by myself—nothing! I have no influence at all over my master's mind. You, perhaps…

7:33:06 Aouda: What influence could I have? Mr. Fogg yields to none! Has he ever understood that my gratitude to him was ready to overflow! Has he ever read my heart!…

7:33:18 Aouda: My friend, we must not leave him, not for a single moment. You say he has expressed the wish to speak to me this evening?

7:33:25 Jean Passepartout: Yes, madame. No doubt it is a question of securing your position in England.

7:33:30 Aouda: Let us wait,

7:33:31 replied the young woman, who remained deep in thought.

7:33:36 Thus, throughout that Sunday, the house in Saville Row was as though it had been uninhabited, and, for the first time since he had lived in that house, Phileas Fogg did not go to his club when half-past eleven struck from the tower of the Houses of Parliament.

7:33:53 And why should the gentleman have presented himself at the Reform Club? His colleagues were no longer expecting him there. Since, the evening before, on that fatal date of Saturday the twenty-first of December, at eight forty-five, Phileas Fogg had not appeared in the drawing-room of the Reform Club, his wager was lost.

7:34:14 It was not even necessary for him to go to his banker's to draw that sum of twenty thousand pounds. His adversaries held a cheque signed by him, and a simple entry to be made at Baring Brothers' was all that was needed for the twenty thousand pounds to be carried to their credit.

7:34:32 Mr. Fogg therefore had no need to go out, and he did not go out. He stayed in his room and put his affairs in order. Passepartout never stopped going up and down the stairs of the house in Saville Row. For the poor fellow the hours would not move.

7:34:49 He listened at the door of his master's room, and in doing so did not think he was committing the slightest indiscretion! He looked through the keyhole, and fancied he had every right to! Passepartout dreaded some catastrophe at every moment.

7:35:05 Sometimes he thought of Fix, but a change had come over his mind. He no longer bore the police inspector any grudge. Fix had been mistaken about Phileas Fogg like everyone else, and in shadowing him and arresting him he had only done his duty, whereas he himself…

7:35:24 This thought overwhelmed him, and he held himself the most wretched of men.

7:35:30 When at last Passepartout felt too unhappy alone, he would knock at Mrs. Aouda's door, go into her room, sit down in a corner without a word, and gaze at the young woman, who was still lost in thought.

7:35:46 Towards half-past seven in the evening Mr. Fogg sent to ask Mrs. Aouda whether she could receive him, and a few moments later the young woman and he were alone in that room.

7:35:57 Phileas Fogg took a chair and sat down near the fireplace, facing Mrs. Aouda. His face reflected no emotion. The Fogg of the return was exactly the Fogg of the departure. The same calm, the same impassiveness.

7:36:14 He remained without speaking for five minutes.

7:36:19 Then, raising his eyes to Mrs. Aouda:

7:36:23 Phileas Fogg: Madam, will you forgive me for having brought you to England?

7:36:27 Aouda: I, Mr. Fogg!…

7:36:29 replied Mrs. Aouda, trying to still the beating of her heart.

7:36:34 Phileas Fogg: Be so good as to let me finish. When I conceived the idea of taking you far away from that country, which had become so dangerous for you, I was rich, and I meant to put a part of my fortune at your disposal. Your life would have been happy and free. Now I am ruined.

7:36:53 Aouda: I know it, Mr. Fogg, and in my turn I shall ask you: will you pardon me for having followed you, and—who can tell?—for having perhaps, by holding you back, contributed to your ruin?

7:37:05 Phileas Fogg: Madam, you could not remain in India, and your safety was assured only if you went far enough away for your persecutors to be unable to seize you again.

7:37:15 Aouda: So, Mr. Fogg, not content with snatching me from a horrible death, you believed yourself bound as well to secure my position in a foreign land?

7:37:25 Phileas Fogg: Yes, madam, but events have turned against me. Nevertheless, I beg your leave to dispose of the little I have left in your favour.

7:37:35 Aouda: But you, Mr. Fogg—what will become of you?

7:37:38 Phileas Fogg: I, madam, have need of nothing.

7:37:41 Aouda: But how, sir, do you look upon the fate that awaits you?

7:37:46 Phileas Fogg: As it is proper to look upon it.

7:37:48 Aouda: In any case, poverty could never overtake a man such as you. Your friends…

7:37:54 Phileas Fogg: I have no friends, madam.

7:37:56 Aouda: Your kin…

7:37:57 Phileas Fogg: I have no kin left.

7:37:59 Aouda: Then I pity you, Mr. Fogg, for loneliness is a sad thing. What! not one heart into which to pour your sorrows. And yet they say that, shared by two, even poverty may still be borne!

7:38:14 Phileas Fogg: So they say, madam.

7:38:16 Aouda: Mr. Fogg,

7:38:17 said Mrs. Aouda then, rising and holding out her hand to the gentleman,

7:38:22 Aouda: will you have at once a kinswoman and a friend? Will you have me for your wife?

7:38:33 At these words Mr. Fogg had risen in his turn. There was something like an unaccustomed light in his eyes, something like a tremor on his lips. Mrs. Aouda was looking at him.

7:38:46 The sincerity, the uprightness, the firmness and the gentleness of that beautiful gaze—the gaze of a noble woman who dares everything to save the man to whom she owes everything—astonished him at first, then pierced him through.

7:39:03 He closed his eyes for an instant, as though to keep that gaze from sinking any deeper… When he opened them again:

7:39:11 Phileas Fogg: I love you!

7:39:13 he said simply.

7:39:14 Phileas Fogg: Yes, truly, by all that is most sacred in the world, I love you, and I am wholly yours!

7:39:22 Aouda: Ah!…

7:39:23 cried Mrs. Aouda, pressing her hand to her heart.

7:39:32 Passepartout was rung for. He came at once. Mr. Fogg was still holding Mrs. Aouda's hand in his. Passepartout understood, and his broad face beamed like the sun at its zenith in the tropics.

7:39:46 Mr. Fogg asked him whether it would not be too late to go and give notice to the Reverend Samuel Wilson, of the parish of Mary-le-Bone.

7:39:55 Passepartout smiled his very best smile.

7:39:59 Jean Passepartout: Never too late.

7:40:01 It was only five minutes past eight.

7:40:04 Jean Passepartout: It would be for tomorrow, Monday!

7:40:06 Phileas Fogg: For tomorrow, Monday?

7:40:08 asked Mr. Fogg, looking at the young woman.

7:40:11 Aouda: For tomorrow, Monday!

7:40:14 Passepartout went out at a run.

7:40:19 Chapter XXXVI: In which Phileas Fogg is once more at a premium on the market

7:40:19 Chapter Thirty-six. In which Phileas Fogg is once more at a premium on the market.

7:40:26 It is time to relate here what a reversal of opinion had taken place in the United Kingdom when it became known that the real thief of the Bank—a certain James Strand—had been arrested; the arrest had taken place on the seventeenth of December, at Edinburgh.

7:40:43 Three days before, Phileas Fogg had been a criminal whom the police were hunting down without mercy; and now he was the most honest of gentlemen, accomplishing his eccentric journey round the world with mathematical precision.

7:40:58 What a sensation, what a stir in the newspapers! All those who had bet for or against him, and who had already forgotten the affair, came back to life as if by magic. All the transactions became valid again. All the engagements revived, and, it must be said, the betting started up again with fresh energy.

7:41:20 The name of Phileas Fogg was once more at a premium on the market.

7:41:26 The gentleman's five colleagues at the Reform Club spent those three days in a certain uneasiness. This Phileas Fogg whom they had forgotten was reappearing before their eyes! Where was he at that moment?

7:41:40 On the seventeenth of December—the day James Strand was arrested—it was seventy-six days since Phileas Fogg had left, and not a word from him! Had he perished? Had he given up the struggle, or was he continuing on his way according to the agreed itinerary?

7:41:58 And on Saturday the twenty-first of December, at eight forty-five in the evening, would he appear, like the god of punctuality, on the threshold of the drawing-room of the Reform Club?

7:42:09 It is useless to try to depict the anxiety in which the whole world of English society lived for those three days. Telegrams were sent off to America and to Asia for news of Phileas Fogg! Men were sent morning and evening to watch the house in Saville Row… Nothing.

7:42:28 The police themselves no longer knew what had become of the detective Fix, who had so unluckily rushed off on a false scent. Which did not prevent the betting from starting again on a vaster scale.

7:42:41 Phileas Fogg, like a racehorse, was coming round the last bend. He was no longer quoted at a hundred to one, but at twenty, at ten, at five; and old Lord Albermale, the invalid, for his part, was taking him at evens.

7:42:57 And so, on the Saturday evening, there was a crowd in Pall Mall and the neighbouring streets. One would have said it was an immense gathering of brokers permanently established around the Reform Club. The traffic was held up.

7:43:12 People argued, they disputed, they cried the price of 'Phileas Fogg' as they cried that of the English Funds. The policemen had great difficulty in keeping back the populace, and as the hour drew near at which Phileas Fogg was due to arrive, the excitement reached unbelievable proportions.

7:43:33 That evening the gentleman's five colleagues had been assembled since nine o'clock in the great drawing-room of the Reform Club. The two bankers, John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, the engineer Andrew Stuart,

7:43:47 Gauthier Ralph, a director of the Bank of England, and the brewer Thomas Flanagan—all were waiting anxiously.

7:43:55 At the moment when the clock in the great drawing-room marked twenty-five minutes past eight, Andrew Stuart rose and said:

7:44:03 Andrew Stuart: Gentlemen, twenty minutes from now the term agreed between Mr. Phileas Fogg and us will have run out.

7:44:09 Thomas Flanagan: At what time did the last train from Liverpool arrive?

7:44:12 asked Thomas Flanagan.

7:44:13 Gauthier Ralph: At seven twenty-three,

7:44:15 replied Gauthier Ralph,

7:44:17 Gauthier Ralph: and the next train does not arrive until ten minutes past midnight.

7:44:21 Andrew Stuart: Well, gentlemen, if Phileas Fogg had come by the seven twenty-three, he would be here already. We may therefore regard the wager as won.

7:44:30 Samuel Fallentin: Let us wait, and not be too quick to decide,

7:44:34 replied Samuel Fallentin.

7:44:36 Samuel Fallentin: You know that our colleague is an eccentric of the first order. His punctuality in everything is well known. He never arrives either too late or too early, and if he were to appear here at the last minute, I should not be particularly surprised.

7:44:54 Andrew Stuart: And I,

7:44:55 said Andrew Stuart, who was, as always, very highly strung,

7:45:00 Andrew Stuart: should see him and still not believe it.

7:45:03 Thomas Flanagan: The fact is,

7:45:04 Thomas Flanagan went on,

7:45:06 Thomas Flanagan: Phileas Fogg's plan was insane. However punctual he might be, he could not prevent unavoidable delays from occurring, and a delay of only two or three days was enough to ruin his journey.

7:45:17 John Sullivan: You will observe, besides,

7:45:19 added John Sullivan,

7:45:21 John Sullivan: that we have received no news of our colleague, and yet there was no lack of telegraph wires along his route.

7:45:28 Andrew Stuart: He has lost, gentlemen, he has lost a hundred times over! You know, moreover, that the China—the only steamer from New York he could have taken to reach Liverpool in time—arrived yesterday. Well, here is the list of passengers, published by the Shipping Gazette, and the name of Phileas Fogg is not on it.

7:45:47 Andrew Stuart: Granting him the most favourable chances, our colleague has barely reached America! I reckon that he will be at least twenty days behind the agreed date, and old Lord Albermale will be the poorer by his five thousand pounds as well!

7:46:01 Gauthier Ralph: That is evident,

7:46:02 replied Gauthier Ralph,

7:46:04 Gauthier Ralph: and tomorrow we shall only have to present Mr. Fogg's cheque at Baring Brothers'.

7:46:09 At that moment the drawing-room clock struck eight-forty.

7:46:13 Andrew Stuart: Five minutes more.

7:46:16 The five colleagues looked at one another. It may be believed that their heartbeats had undergone a slight acceleration, for after all, even for good sportsmen, the stakes were heavy! But they wished to let nothing of it appear, for at Samuel Fallentin's suggestion they sat down at a card-table.

7:46:35 Andrew Stuart: I would not give up my four-thousand-pound share in the wager,

7:46:39 said Andrew Stuart as he sat down,

7:46:42 Andrew Stuart: even if I were offered three thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine for it!

7:46:47 The hand at that moment marked eight forty-two.

7:46:51 The players had taken up their cards, but at every moment their eyes went back to the clock. It may safely be said that, however secure they felt, never had minutes seemed so long to them!

7:47:04 Thomas Flanagan: Eight forty-three,

7:47:06 said Thomas Flanagan, cutting the pack which Gauthier Ralph held out to him.

7:47:11 Then there was a moment's silence. The vast drawing-room of the club was quiet. But outside could be heard the hubbub of the crowd, with shrill cries rising above it now and then.

7:47:24 The pendulum of the clock beat the seconds with mathematical regularity. Each player could count the sexagesimal divisions as they struck upon his ear.

7:47:35 John Sullivan: Eight forty-four!

7:47:37 said John Sullivan, in a voice in which an involuntary emotion could be felt.

7:47:43 One minute more, and the wager was won. Andrew Stuart and his colleagues were no longer playing.

7:47:51 They had abandoned the cards! They were counting the seconds!

7:47:56 At the fortieth second, nothing.

7:48:01 At the fiftieth, still nothing!

7:48:07 At the fifty-fifth, something like thunder was heard outside—

7:48:11 applause, hurrahs, and even curses, spreading in one continuous roll.

7:48:18 The players rose to their feet.

7:48:21 On the fifty-seventh second the drawing-room door swung open,

7:48:26 and before the pendulum had beaten out the sixtieth, Phileas Fogg appeared,

7:48:32 followed by a frenzied crowd that had forced its way into the club, and in his calm voice:

7:48:38 Phileas Fogg: Here I am, gentlemen.

7:48:46 Chapter XXXVII: In which it is proved that Phileas Fogg gained nothing by this tour of the world, unless it were happiness

7:48:46 Chapter Thirty-seven. In which it is proved that Phileas Fogg gained nothing by this tour of the world, unless it were happiness.

7:48:54 Yes! Phileas Fogg in person.

7:48:58 It will be remembered that at five minutes past eight in the evening—about twenty-five hours after the travellers' arrival in London—Passepartout had been instructed by his master to give notice to the Reverend Samuel Wilson of a certain marriage which was to take place the very next day.

7:49:18 So Passepartout had gone off, delighted. He made his way at a rapid pace to the residence of the Reverend Samuel Wilson, who had not yet come home.

7:49:28 Naturally, Passepartout waited; but he waited a good twenty minutes at the very least.

7:49:41 In short, it was eight thirty-five when he came out of the clergyman's house. But in what a state! His hair in disorder, hatless, running, running as no man has ever been seen to run within living memory, knocking over the passers-by, rushing along the pavements like a whirlwind!

7:49:58 In three minutes he was back at the house in Saville Row, and he tumbled, breathless, into Mr. Fogg's room.

7:50:05 He could not speak.

7:50:07 Phileas Fogg: What is the matter?

7:50:08 Jean Passepartout: My master… marriage… impossible.

7:50:12 Phileas Fogg: Impossible?

7:50:13 Jean Passepartout: Impossible… for tomorrow.

7:50:15 Phileas Fogg: Why?

7:50:17 Jean Passepartout: Because tomorrow… is Sunday!

7:50:20 Phileas Fogg: Monday.

7:50:22 Jean Passepartout: No… today… Saturday.

7:50:25 Phileas Fogg: Saturday? Impossible!

7:50:28 Jean Passepartout: It is, it is, it is, it is! Your reckoning is out by a day! We got here twenty-four hours early… but we have only ten minutes left!…

7:50:36 Passepartout had his master by the collar and was hauling him off with irresistible strength!

7:50:43 Phileas Fogg, thus carried off without having time to think, left his room, left his house, jumped into a cab, promised the cabman a hundred pounds,

7:50:53 and, after running over two dogs and colliding with five carriages, arrived at the Reform Club.

7:51:00 The clock was marking eight forty-five when he appeared in the great drawing-room…

7:51:06 Phileas Fogg had accomplished this tour of the world in eighty days!…

7:51:11 Phileas Fogg had won his wager of twenty thousand pounds!

7:51:17 And now, how could a man so exact, so meticulous, have made this mistake of a day? How had he come to believe it was Saturday evening, the twenty-first of December, when he alighted in London, whereas it was only Friday, the twentieth of December, a mere seventy-nine days after his departure?

7:51:37 Here is the reason for this mistake. It is very simple.

7:51:42 'Without suspecting it', Phileas Fogg had gained a day on his itinerary—and this solely because he had made the tour of the world going east; he would, on the contrary, have lost that day by going the reverse way, namely west.

7:51:57 For in travelling eastward Phileas Fogg was going to meet the sun, and consequently the days grew shorter for him by as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in that direction.

7:52:10 Now, there are three hundred and sixty degrees in the circumference of the earth, and these three hundred and sixty degrees, multiplied by four minutes, give precisely twenty-four hours—that is to say, the day he had unconsciously gained.

7:52:26 In other words, while Phileas Fogg, travelling eastward, saw the sun pass the meridian eighty times, his colleagues who had stayed in London saw it pass only seventy-nine times.

7:52:39 That is why, on that very day, which was Saturday and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg believed, they were waiting for him in the drawing-room of the Reform Club.

7:52:54 And this is what Passepartout's famous watch—which had kept London time throughout—would have recorded,

7:53:00 had it shown the days along with the minutes and the hours!

7:53:05 Phileas Fogg had thus won the twenty thousand pounds. But as he had spent some nineteen thousand of them on the way, the pecuniary result was modest.

7:53:15 However, as has been said, the eccentric gentleman had sought in this wager only the struggle, not a fortune. And indeed he divided the remaining thousand pounds between the honest Passepartout and the unfortunate Fix, against whom he was incapable of bearing a grudge.

7:53:34 Only, for the sake of regularity, he deducted from his servant the cost of the nineteen hundred and twenty hours of gas consumed through his fault.

7:53:45 That same evening Mr. Fogg, just as impassive, just as phlegmatic, said to Mrs. Aouda:

7:53:53 Phileas Fogg: Is this marriage still agreeable to you, madam?

7:53:56 Aouda: Mr. Fogg, it is for me to ask you that question. You were ruined; now you are rich…

7:54:03 Phileas Fogg: Forgive me, madam: this fortune is yours. Had you not thought of this marriage, my servant would not have called at the Reverend Samuel Wilson's, nor should I have been warned of my error, and…

7:54:16 Aouda: Dear Mr. Fogg…

7:54:18 Phileas Fogg: Dear Aouda…

7:54:20 It will readily be understood that the marriage took place forty-eight hours later, and that Passepartout, superb, resplendent, dazzling, figured at it as the young woman's witness.

7:54:33 Had he not saved her, and was not that honour his due?

7:54:39 Only, the next day, at the crack of dawn, Passepartout was hammering at his master's door.

7:54:45 The door opened, and the impassive gentleman appeared.

7:54:49 Phileas Fogg: What is the matter, Passepartout?

7:54:51 Jean Passepartout: What's the matter, monsieur! The matter is that I have only this moment learned…

7:54:56 Phileas Fogg: Learned what?

7:54:57 Jean Passepartout: That we could have gone round the world in only seventy-eight days.

7:55:02 Phileas Fogg: No doubt, by not going across India. But if I had not gone across India, I should not have saved Mrs. Aouda, she would not be my wife, and…

7:55:12 And Mr. Fogg quietly shut the door.

7:55:16 So Phileas Fogg had won his wager. He had accomplished this journey round the world in eighty days! To do it he had made use of every means of transport—steamers, railways, carriages, yachts, merchant ships, sledges, elephant.

7:55:34 The eccentric gentleman had displayed in this affair his marvellous qualities of coolness and exactitude. But what then? What had he gained by all this travelling? What had he brought back from his journey?

7:55:48 Nothing, you will say? Nothing, so be it, except a charming wife, who—however improbable it may seem—made him the happiest of men!

7:55:59 In truth, would one not make the Tour of the World for less than that?