Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter III

IN WHICH A CON­VER­SA­TION TAKES PLACE WHICH SEEMS LIKE­LY TO COST PHILEAS FOGG DEAR

Phileas Fogg, hav­ing shut the door of his house at half-​past eleven, and hav­ing put his right foot be­fore his left five hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​five times, and his left foot be­fore his right five hun­dred and sev­en­ty-​six times, reached the Re­form Club, an im­pos­ing ed­ifice in Pall Mall, which could not have cost less than three mil­lions. He re­paired at once to the din­ing-​room, the nine win­dows of which open up­on a taste­ful gar­den, where the trees were al­ready gild­ed with an au­tumn colour­ing; and took his place at the ha­bit­ual ta­ble, the cov­er of which had al­ready been laid for him. His break­fast con­sist­ed of a side-​dish, a broiled fish with Read­ing sauce, a scar­let slice of roast beef gar­nished with mush­rooms, a rhubarb and goose­ber­ry tart, and a morsel of Cheshire cheese, the whole be­ing washed down with sev­er­al cups of tea, for which the Re­form is fa­mous. He rose at thir­teen min­utes to one, and di­rect­ed his steps to­wards the large hall, a sump­tu­ous apart­ment adorned with lav­ish­ly-​framed paint­ings. A flunkey hand­ed him an un­cut Times, which he pro­ceed­ed to cut with a skill which be­trayed fa­mil­iar­ity with this del­icate op­er­ation. The pe­rusal of this pa­per ab­sorbed Phileas Fogg un­til a quar­ter be­fore four, whilst the Stan­dard, his next task, oc­cu­pied him till the din­ner hour. Din­ner passed as break­fast had done, and Mr. Fogg re-​ap­peared in the read­ing-​room and sat down to the Pall Mall at twen­ty min­utes be­fore six. Half an hour lat­er sev­er­al mem­bers of the Re­form came in and drew up to the fire­place, where a coal fire was steadi­ly burn­ing. They were Mr. Fogg's usu­al part­ners at whist: An­drew Stu­art, an en­gi­neer; John Sul­li­van and Samuel Fal­lentin, bankers; Thomas Flana­gan, a brew­er; and Gau­thi­er Ralph, one of the Di­rec­tors of the Bank of Eng­land--all rich and high­ly re­spectable per­son­ages, even in a club which com­pris­es the princes of En­glish trade and fi­nance.

“Well, Ralph,” said Thomas Flana­gan, “what about that rob­bery?”

“Oh,” replied Stu­art, “the Bank will lose the mon­ey.”

“On the con­trary,” broke in Ralph, “I hope we may put our hands on the rob­ber. Skil­ful de­tec­tives have been sent to all the prin­ci­pal ports of Amer­ica and the Con­ti­nent, and he'll be a clever fel­low if he slips through their fin­gers.”

“But have you got the rob­ber's de­scrip­tion?” asked Stu­art.

“In the first place, he is no rob­ber at all,” re­turned Ralph, pos­itive­ly.

“What! a fel­low who makes off with fifty-​five thou­sand pounds, no rob­ber?”

“No.”

“Per­haps he's a man­ufac­tur­er, then.”

“The Dai­ly Tele­graph says that he is a gen­tle­man.”

It was Phileas Fogg, whose head now emerged from be­hind his news­pa­pers, who made this re­mark. He bowed to his friends, and en­tered in­to the con­ver­sa­tion. The af­fair which formed its sub­ject, and which was town talk, had oc­curred three days be­fore at the Bank of Eng­land. A pack­age of ban­knotes, to the val­ue of fifty-​five thou­sand pounds, had been tak­en from the prin­ci­pal cashier's ta­ble, that func­tionary be­ing at the mo­ment en­gaged in reg­is­ter­ing the re­ceipt of three shillings and six­pence. Of course, he could not have his eyes ev­ery­where. Let it be ob­served that the Bank of Eng­land re­pos­es a touch­ing con­fi­dence in the hon­esty of the pub­lic. There are nei­ther guards nor grat­ings to pro­tect its trea­sures; gold, sil­ver, ban­knotes are freely ex­posed, at the mer­cy of the first com­er. A keen ob­serv­er of En­glish cus­toms re­lates that, be­ing in one of the rooms of the Bank one day, he had the cu­rios­ity to ex­am­ine a gold in­got weigh­ing some sev­en or eight pounds. He took it up, scru­ti­nised it, passed it to his neigh­bour, he to the next man, and so on un­til the in­got, go­ing from hand to hand, was trans­ferred to the end of a dark en­try; nor did it re­turn to its place for half an hour. Mean­while, the cashier had not so much as raised his head. But in the present in­stance things had not gone so smooth­ly. The pack­age of notes not be­ing found when five o'clock sound­ed from the pon­der­ous clock in the “draw­ing of­fice,” the amount was passed to the ac­count of prof­it and loss. As soon as the rob­bery was dis­cov­ered, picked de­tec­tives has­tened off to Liv­er­pool, Glas­gow, Havre, Suez, Brin­disi, New York, and oth­er ports, in­spired by the prof­fered re­ward of two thou­sand pounds, and five per cent. on the sum that might be re­cov­ered. De­tec­tives were al­so charged with nar­row­ly watch­ing those who ar­rived at or left Lon­don by rail, and a ju­di­cial ex­am­ina­tion was at once en­tered up­on.

There were re­al grounds for sup­pos­ing, as the Dai­ly Tele­graph said, that the thief did not be­long to a pro­fes­sion­al band. On the day of the rob­bery a well-​dressed gen­tle­man of pol­ished man­ners, and with a well-​to-​do air, had been ob­served go­ing to and fro in the pay­ing room where the crime was com­mit­ted. A de­scrip­tion of him was eas­ily pro­cured and sent to the de­tec­tives; and some hope­ful spir­its, of whom Ralph was one, did not de­spair of his ap­pre­hen­sion. The pa­pers and clubs were full of the af­fair, and ev­ery­where peo­ple were dis­cussing the prob­abil­ities of a suc­cess­ful pur­suit; and the Re­form Club was es­pe­cial­ly ag­itat­ed, sev­er­al of its mem­bers be­ing Bank of­fi­cials.

Ralph would not con­cede that the work of the de­tec­tives was like­ly to be in vain, for he thought that the prize of­fered would great­ly stim­ulate their zeal and ac­tiv­ity. But Stu­art was far from shar­ing this con­fi­dence; and, as they placed them­selves at the whist-​ta­ble, they con­tin­ued to ar­gue the mat­ter. Stu­art and Flana­gan played to­geth­er, while Phileas Fogg had Fal­lentin for his part­ner. As the game pro­ceed­ed the con­ver­sa­tion ceased, ex­cept­ing be­tween the rub­bers, when it re­vived again.

“I main­tain,” said Stu­art, “that the chances are in favour of the thief, who must be a shrewd fel­low.”

“Well, but where can he fly to?” asked Ralph. “No coun­try is safe for him.”

“Pshaw!”

“Where could he go, then?”

“Oh, I don't know that. The world is big enough.”

“It was once,” said Phileas Fogg, in a low tone. “Cut, sir,” he added, hand­ing the cards to Thomas Flana­gan.

The dis­cus­sion fell dur­ing the rub­ber, af­ter which Stu­art took up its thread.

“What do you mean by `once'? Has the world grown small­er?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” re­turned Ralph. “I agree with Mr. Fogg. The world has grown small­er, since a man can now go round it ten times more quick­ly than a hun­dred years ago. And that is why the search for this thief will be more like­ly to suc­ceed.”

“And al­so why the thief can get away more eas­ily.”

“Be so good as to play, Mr. Stu­art,” said Phileas Fogg.

But the in­cred­ulous Stu­art was not con­vinced, and when the hand was fin­ished, said ea­ger­ly: “You have a strange way, Ralph, of prov­ing that the world has grown small­er. So, be­cause you can go round it in three months--”

“In eighty days,” in­ter­rupt­ed Phileas Fogg.

“That is true, gen­tle­men,” added John Sul­li­van. "On­ly eighty days, now that the sec­tion be­tween Rothal and Al­la­habad, on the Great In­di­an Penin­su­la Rail­way, has been opened. Here is the es­ti­mate made by the Dai­ly Tele­graph:

From Lon­don to Suez via Mont Ce­nis and Brin­disi, by rail and steam­boats ................. 7 days From Suez to Bom­bay, by steam­er .................... 13 “ From Bom­bay to Cal­cut­ta, by rail ................... 3 ” From Cal­cut­ta to Hong Kong, by steam­er ............. 13 “ From Hong Kong to Yoko­hama (Japan), by steam­er ..... 6 ” From Yoko­hama to San Fran­cis­co, by steam­er ......... 22 “ From San Fran­cis­co to New York, by rail ............. 7 ” From New York to Lon­don, by steam­er and rail ........ 9 “ ------ To­tal ............................................ 80 days.”

“Yes, in eighty days!” ex­claimed Stu­art, who in his ex­cite­ment made a false deal. “But that doesn't take in­to ac­count bad weath­er, con­trary winds, ship­wrecks, rail­way ac­ci­dents, and so on.”

“All in­clud­ed,” re­turned Phileas Fogg, con­tin­uing to play de­spite the dis­cus­sion.

“But sup­pose the Hin­doos or In­di­ans pull up the rails,” replied Stu­art; “sup­pose they stop the trains, pil­lage the lug­gage-​vans, and scalp the pas­sen­gers!”

“All in­clud­ed,” calm­ly re­tort­ed Fogg; adding, as he threw down the cards, “Two trumps.”

Stu­art, whose turn it was to deal, gath­ered them up, and went on: “You are right, the­oret­ical­ly, Mr. Fogg, but prac­ti­cal­ly--”

“Prac­ti­cal­ly al­so, Mr. Stu­art.”

“I'd like to see you do it in eighty days.”

“It de­pends on you. Shall we go?”

“Heav­en pre­serve me! But I would wa­ger four thou­sand pounds that such a jour­ney, made un­der these con­di­tions, is im­pos­si­ble.”

“Quite pos­si­ble, on the con­trary,” re­turned Mr. Fogg.

“Well, make it, then!”

“The jour­ney round the world in eighty days?”

“Yes.”

“I should like noth­ing bet­ter.”

“When?”

“At once. On­ly I warn you that I shall do it at your ex­pense.”

“It's ab­surd!” cried Stu­art, who was be­gin­ning to be an­noyed at the per­sis­ten­cy of his friend. “Come, let's go on with the game.”

“Deal over again, then,” said Phileas Fogg. “There's a false deal.”

Stu­art took up the pack with a fever­ish hand; then sud­den­ly put them down again.

“Well, Mr. Fogg,” said he, “it shall be so: I will wa­ger the four thou­sand on it.”

“Calm your­self, my dear Stu­art,” said Fal­lentin. “It's on­ly a joke.”

“When I say I'll wa­ger,” re­turned Stu­art, “I mean it.” “All right,” said Mr. Fogg; and, turn­ing to the oth­ers, he con­tin­ued: “I have a de­posit of twen­ty thou­sand at Bar­ing's which I will will­ing­ly risk up­on it.”

“Twen­ty thou­sand pounds!” cried Sul­li­van. “Twen­ty thou­sand pounds, which you would lose by a sin­gle ac­ci­den­tal de­lay!”

“The un­fore­seen does not ex­ist,” qui­et­ly replied Phileas Fogg.

“But, Mr. Fogg, eighty days are on­ly the es­ti­mate of the least pos­si­ble time in which the jour­ney can be made.”

“A well-​used min­imum suf­fices for ev­ery­thing.”

“But, in or­der not to ex­ceed it, you must jump math­emat­ical­ly from the trains up­on the steam­ers, and from the steam­ers up­on the trains again.”

“I will jump--math­emat­ical­ly.”

“You are jok­ing.”

“A true En­glish­man doesn't joke when he is talk­ing about so se­ri­ous a thing as a wa­ger,” replied Phileas Fogg, solemn­ly. “I will bet twen­ty thou­sand pounds against any­one who wish­es that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less; in nine­teen hun­dred and twen­ty hours, or a hun­dred and fif­teen thou­sand two hun­dred min­utes. Do you ac­cept?”

“We ac­cept,” replied Messrs. Stu­art, Fal­lentin, Sul­li­van, Flana­gan, and Ralph, af­ter con­sult­ing each oth­er.

“Good,” said Mr. Fogg. “The train leaves for Dover at a quar­ter be­fore nine. I will take it.”

“This very evening?” asked Stu­art.

“This very evening,” re­turned Phileas Fogg. He took out and con­sult­ed a pock­et al­manac, and added, “As to­day is Wednes­day, the 2nd of Oc­to­ber, I shall be due in Lon­don in this very room of the Re­form Club, on Sat­ur­day, the 21st of De­cem­ber, at a quar­ter be­fore nine p.m.; or else the twen­ty thou­sand pounds, now de­posit­ed in my name at Bar­ing's, will be­long to you, in fact and in right, gen­tle­men. Here is a cheque for the amount.”

A mem­oran­dum of the wa­ger was at once drawn up and signed by the six par­ties, dur­ing which Phileas Fogg pre­served a sto­ical com­po­sure. He cer­tain­ly did not bet to win, and had on­ly staked the twen­ty thou­sand pounds, half of his for­tune, be­cause he fore­saw that he might have to ex­pend the oth­er half to car­ry out this dif­fi­cult, not to say unattain­able, project. As for his an­tag­onists, they seemed much ag­itat­ed; not so much by the val­ue of their stake, as be­cause they had some scru­ples about bet­ting un­der con­di­tions so dif­fi­cult to their friend.

The clock struck sev­en, and the par­ty of­fered to sus­pend the game so that Mr. Fogg might make his prepa­ra­tions for de­par­ture.

“I am quite ready now,” was his tran­quil re­sponse. “Di­amonds are trumps: be so good as to play, gen­tle­men.”