Around the World in 80 Days

Chapter V

IN WHICH A NEW SPECIES OF FUNDS, UN­KNOWN TO THE MON­EYED MEN, AP­PEARS ON 'CHANGE

Phileas Fogg right­ly sus­pect­ed that his de­par­ture from Lon­don would cre­ate a live­ly sen­sa­tion at the West End. The news of the bet spread through the Re­form Club, and af­ford­ed an ex­cit­ing top­ic of con­ver­sa­tion to its mem­bers. From the club it soon got in­to the pa­pers through­out Eng­land. The boast­ed “tour of the world” was talked about, dis­put­ed, ar­gued with as much warmth as if the sub­ject were an­oth­er Al­aba­ma claim. Some took sides with Phileas Fogg, but the large ma­jor­ity shook their heads and de­clared against him; it was ab­surd, im­pos­si­ble, they de­clared, that the tour of the world could be made, ex­cept the­oret­ical­ly and on pa­per, in this min­imum of time, and with the ex­ist­ing means of trav­el­ling. The Times, Stan­dard, Morn­ing Post, and Dai­ly News, and twen­ty oth­er high­ly re­spectable news­pa­pers scout­ed Mr. Fogg's project as mad­ness; the Dai­ly Tele­graph alone hes­itat­ing­ly sup­port­ed him. Peo­ple in gen­er­al thought him a lu­natic, and blamed his Re­form Club friends for hav­ing ac­cept­ed a wa­ger which be­trayed the men­tal aber­ra­tion of its pro­pos­er.

Ar­ti­cles no less pas­sion­ate than log­ical ap­peared on the ques­tion, for ge­og­ra­phy is one of the pet sub­jects of the En­glish; and the columns de­vot­ed to Phileas Fogg's ven­ture were ea­ger­ly de­voured by all class­es of read­ers. At first some rash in­di­vid­uals, prin­ci­pal­ly of the gen­tler sex, es­poused his cause, which be­came still more pop­ular when the Il­lus­trat­ed Lon­don News came out with his por­trait, copied from a pho­to­graph in the Re­form Club. A few read­ers of the Dai­ly Tele­graph even dared to say, “Why not, af­ter all? Stranger things have come to pass.”

At last a long ar­ti­cle ap­peared, on the 7th of Oc­to­ber, in the bul­letin of the Roy­al Ge­ograph­ical So­ci­ety, which treat­ed the ques­tion from ev­ery point of view, and demon­strat­ed the ut­ter fol­ly of the en­ter­prise.

Ev­ery­thing, it said, was against the trav­ellers, ev­ery ob­sta­cle im­posed alike by man and by na­ture. A mirac­ulous agree­ment of the times of de­par­ture and ar­rival, which was im­pos­si­ble, was ab­so­lute­ly nec­es­sary to his suc­cess. He might, per­haps, reck­on on the ar­rival of trains at the des­ig­nat­ed hours, in Eu­rope, where the dis­tances were rel­ative­ly mod­er­ate; but when he cal­cu­lat­ed up­on cross­ing In­dia in three days, and the Unit­ed States in sev­en, could he re­ly be­yond mis­giv­ing up­on ac­com­plish­ing his task? There were ac­ci­dents to ma­chin­ery, the li­abil­ity of trains to run off the line, col­li­sions, bad weath­er, the block­ing up by snow--were not all these against Phileas Fogg? Would he not find him­self, when trav­el­ling by steam­er in win­ter, at the mer­cy of the winds and fogs? Is it un­com­mon for the best ocean steam­ers to be two or three days be­hind time? But a sin­gle de­lay would suf­fice to fa­tal­ly break the chain of com­mu­ni­ca­tion; should Phileas Fogg once miss, even by an hour; a steam­er, he would have to wait for the next, and that would ir­re­vo­ca­bly ren­der his at­tempt vain.

This ar­ti­cle made a great deal of noise, and, be­ing copied in­to all the pa­pers, se­ri­ous­ly de­pressed the ad­vo­cates of the rash tourist.

Ev­ery­body knows that Eng­land is the world of bet­ting men, who are of a high­er class than mere gam­blers; to bet is in the En­glish tem­per­ament. Not on­ly the mem­bers of the Re­form, but the gen­er­al pub­lic, made heavy wa­gers for or against Phileas Fogg, who was set down in the bet­ting books as if he were a race-​horse. Bonds were is­sued, and made their ap­pear­ance on 'Change; “Phileas Fogg bonds” were of­fered at par or at a pre­mi­um, and a great busi­ness was done in them. But five days af­ter the ar­ti­cle in the bul­letin of the Ge­ograph­ical So­ci­ety ap­peared, the de­mand be­gan to sub­side: “Phileas Fogg” de­clined. They were of­fered by pack­ages, at first of five, then of ten, un­til at last no­body would take less than twen­ty, fifty, a hun­dred!

Lord Albe­mar­le, an el­der­ly par­alyt­ic gen­tle­man, was now the on­ly ad­vo­cate of Phileas Fogg left. This no­ble lord, who was fas­tened to his chair, would have giv­en his for­tune to be able to make the tour of the world, if it took ten years; and he bet five thou­sand pounds on Phileas Fogg. When the fol­ly as well as the use­less­ness of the ad­ven­ture was point­ed out to him, he con­tent­ed him­self with re­ply­ing, “If the thing is fea­si­ble, the first to do it ought to be an En­glish­man.”

The Fogg par­ty dwin­dled more and more, ev­ery­body was go­ing against him, and the bets stood a hun­dred and fifty and two hun­dred to one; and a week af­ter his de­par­ture an in­ci­dent oc­curred which de­prived him of back­ers at any price.

The com­mis­sion­er of po­lice was sit­ting in his of­fice at nine o'clock one evening, when the fol­low­ing tele­graph­ic dis­patch was put in­to his hands:

Suez to Lon­don.

Rowan, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Scot­land Yard:

I've found the bank rob­ber, Phileas Fogg. Send with out de­lay war­rant of ar­rest to Bom­bay.

Fix, De­tec­tive.

The ef­fect of this dis­patch was in­stan­ta­neous. The pol­ished gen­tle­man dis­ap­peared to give place to the bank rob­ber. His pho­to­graph, which was hung with those of the rest of the mem­bers at the Re­form Club, was minute­ly ex­am­ined, and it be­trayed, fea­ture by fea­ture, the de­scrip­tion of the rob­ber which had been pro­vid­ed to the po­lice. The mys­te­ri­ous habits of Phileas Fogg were re­called; his soli­tary ways, his sud­den de­par­ture; and it seemed clear that, in un­der­tak­ing a tour round the world on the pre­text of a wa­ger, he had had no oth­er end in view than to elude the de­tec­tives, and throw them off his track.