Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter II

IN WHICH PASSEP­ARTOUT IS CON­VINCED THAT HE HAS AT LAST FOUND HIS IDE­AL

“Faith,” mut­tered Passep­artout, some­what flur­ried, “I've seen peo­ple at Madame Tus­saud's as live­ly as my new mas­ter!”

Madame Tus­saud's “peo­ple,” let it be said, are of wax, and are much vis­it­ed in Lon­don; speech is all that is want­ing to make them hu­man.

Dur­ing his brief in­ter­view with Mr. Fogg, Passep­artout had been care­ful­ly ob­serv­ing him. He ap­peared to be a man about forty years of age, with fine, hand­some fea­tures, and a tall, well-​shaped fig­ure; his hair and whiskers were light, his fore­head com­pact and un­wrin­kled, his face rather pale, his teeth mag­nif­icent. His coun­te­nance pos­sessed in the high­est de­gree what phys­iog­nomists call “re­pose in ac­tion,” a qual­ity of those who act rather than talk. Calm and phleg­mat­ic, with a clear eye, Mr. Fogg seemed a per­fect type of that En­glish com­po­sure which An­gel­ica Kauff­mann has so skil­ful­ly rep­re­sent­ed on can­vas. Seen in the var­ious phas­es of his dai­ly life, he gave the idea of be­ing per­fect­ly well-​bal­anced, as ex­act­ly reg­ulat­ed as a Leroy chronome­ter. Phileas Fogg was, in­deed, ex­ac­ti­tude per­son­ified, and this was be­trayed even in the ex­pres­sion of his very hands and feet; for in men, as well as in an­imals, the limbs them­selves are ex­pres­sive of the pas­sions.

He was so ex­act that he was nev­er in a hur­ry, was al­ways ready, and was eco­nom­ical alike of his steps and his mo­tions. He nev­er took one step too many, and al­ways went to his des­ti­na­tion by the short­est cut; he made no su­per­flu­ous ges­tures, and was nev­er seen to be moved or ag­itat­ed. He was the most de­lib­er­ate per­son in the world, yet al­ways reached his des­ti­na­tion at the ex­act mo­ment.

He lived alone, and, so to speak, out­side of ev­ery so­cial re­la­tion; and as he knew that in this world ac­count must be tak­en of fric­tion, and that fric­tion re­tards, he nev­er rubbed against any­body.

As for Passep­artout, he was a true Parisian of Paris. Since he had aban­doned his own coun­try for Eng­land, tak­ing ser­vice as a valet, he had in vain searched for a mas­ter af­ter his own heart. Passep­artout was by no means one of those pert dunces de­pict­ed by Moliere with a bold gaze and a nose held high in the air; he was an hon­est fel­low, with a pleas­ant face, lips a tri­fle pro­trud­ing, soft-​man­nered and ser­vice­able, with a good round head, such as one likes to see on the shoul­ders of a friend. His eyes were blue, his com­plex­ion ru­bi­cund, his fig­ure al­most port­ly and well-​built, his body mus­cu­lar, and his phys­ical pow­ers ful­ly de­vel­oped by the ex­er­cis­es of his younger days. His brown hair was some­what tum­bled; for, while the an­cient sculp­tors are said to have known eigh­teen meth­ods of ar­rang­ing Min­er­va's tress­es, Passep­artout was fa­mil­iar with but one of dress­ing his own: three strokes of a large-​tooth comb com­plet­ed his toi­let.

It would be rash to pre­dict how Passep­artout's live­ly na­ture would agree with Mr. Fogg. It was im­pos­si­ble to tell whether the new ser­vant would turn out as ab­so­lute­ly me­thod­ical as his mas­ter re­quired; ex­pe­ri­ence alone could solve the ques­tion. Passep­artout had been a sort of va­grant in his ear­ly years, and now yearned for re­pose; but so far he had failed to find it, though he had al­ready served in ten En­glish hous­es. But he could not take root in any of these; with cha­grin, he found his mas­ters in­vari­ably whim­si­cal and ir­reg­ular, con­stant­ly run­ning about the coun­try, or on the look-​out for ad­ven­ture. His last mas­ter, young Lord Long­fer­ry, Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, af­ter pass­ing his nights in the Hay­mar­ket tav­erns, was too of­ten brought home in the morn­ing on po­lice­men's shoul­ders. Passep­artout, de­sirous of re­spect­ing the gen­tle­man whom he served, ven­tured a mild re­mon­strance on such con­duct; which, be­ing ill-​re­ceived, he took his leave. Hear­ing that Mr. Phileas Fogg was look­ing for a ser­vant, and that his life was one of un­bro­ken reg­ular­ity, that he nei­ther trav­elled nor stayed from home overnight, he felt sure that this would be the place he was af­ter. He pre­sent­ed him­self, and was ac­cept­ed, as has been seen.

At half-​past eleven, then, Passep­artout found him­self alone in the house in Sav­ille Row. He be­gun its in­spec­tion with­out de­lay, scour­ing it from cel­lar to gar­ret. So clean, well-​ar­ranged, solemn a man­sion pleased him; it seemed to him like a snail's shell, light­ed and warmed by gas, which suf­ficed for both these pur­pos­es. When Passep­artout reached the sec­ond sto­ry he recog­nised at once the room which he was to in­hab­it, and he was well sat­is­fied with it. Elec­tric bells and speak­ing-​tubes af­ford­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the low­er sto­ries; while on the man­tel stood an elec­tric clock, pre­cise­ly like that in Mr. Fogg's bed­cham­ber, both beat­ing the same sec­ond at the same in­stant. “That's good, that'll do,” said Passep­artout to him­self.

He sud­den­ly ob­served, hung over the clock, a card which, up­on in­spec­tion, proved to be a pro­gramme of the dai­ly rou­tine of the house. It com­prised all that was re­quired of the ser­vant, from eight in the morn­ing, ex­act­ly at which hour Phileas Fogg rose, till half-​past eleven, when he left the house for the Re­form Club--all the de­tails of ser­vice, the tea and toast at twen­ty-​three min­utes past eight, the shav­ing-​wa­ter at thir­ty-​sev­en min­utes past nine, and the toi­let at twen­ty min­utes be­fore ten. Ev­ery­thing was reg­ulat­ed and fore­seen that was to be done from half-​past eleven a.m. till mid­night, the hour at which the me­thod­ical gen­tle­man re­tired.

Mr. Fogg's wardrobe was am­ply sup­plied and in the best taste. Each pair of trousers, coat, and vest bore a num­ber, in­di­cat­ing the time of year and sea­son at which they were in turn to be laid out for wear­ing; and the same sys­tem was ap­plied to the mas­ter's shoes. In short, the house in Sav­ille Row, which must have been a very tem­ple of dis­or­der and un­rest un­der the il­lus­tri­ous but dis­si­pat­ed Sheri­dan, was cosi­ness, com­fort, and method ide­alised. There was no study, nor were there books, which would have been quite use­less to Mr. Fogg; for at the Re­form two li­braries, one of gen­er­al lit­er­ature and the oth­er of law and pol­itics, were at his ser­vice. A mod­er­ate-​sized safe stood in his bed­room, con­struct­ed so as to de­fy fire as well as bur­glars; but Passep­artout found nei­ther arms nor hunt­ing weapons any­where; ev­ery­thing be­trayed the most tran­quil and peace­able habits.

Hav­ing scru­ti­nised the house from top to bot­tom, he rubbed his hands, a broad smile over­spread his fea­tures, and he said joy­ful­ly, “This is just what I want­ed! Ah, we shall get on to­geth­er, Mr. Fogg and I! What a do­mes­tic and reg­ular gen­tle­man! A re­al ma­chine; well, I don't mind serv­ing a ma­chine.”