Jules Verne · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Phileas Fogg had left his house on Saville Row at half past eleven, and, after putting his right foot in front of his left five hundred seventy-five times, and his left in front of his right five hundred seventy-six times, he arrived at the Reform Club, a vast edifice raised on Pall Mall that cost no less than three million to build.
Phileas Fogg went at once to the dining room, whose nine windows opened onto a fine garden with trees already gilded by autumn. There he took his place at the usual table, where his cover was waiting for him. His lunch consisted of a side dish, a boiled fish dressed with a first-rate "Reading sauce," a scarlet roast beef garnished with "mushroom" condiments, a cake stuffed with stalks of rhubarb and green gooseberries, a piece of Cheshire—all washed down with a few cups of that excellent tea specially gathered for the pantry of the Reform Club.
At forty-seven minutes past noon, this gentleman rose and made his way to the great drawing room, a sumptuous chamber adorned with richly framed paintings. There a servant handed him the uncut Times, whose laborious unfolding Phileas Fogg carried out with a sureness of hand that betrayed long practice at this difficult operation. Reading this paper kept Phileas Fogg occupied until a quarter to four, and the Standard—which followed it—lasted until dinner. This meal was accomplished under the same conditions as the lunch, with the addition of "royal British sauce."
At twenty to six, the gentleman reappeared in the great drawing room and became absorbed in reading the Morning Chronicle.
Half an hour later, various members of the Reform Club came in and drew near the fireplace, where a coal fire was burning. They were Mr. Phileas Fogg's usual partners, like him rabid whist players: the engineer Andrew Stuart, the bankers John Sullivan and Samuel Fallentin, the brewer Thomas Flanagan, and Gauthier Ralph, one of the administrators of the Bank of England—rich and respected figures, even in this club, which counts among its members the leading lights of industry and finance.
"Well, Ralph," asked Thomas Flanagan, "how does that robbery business stand?"
"Well," replied Andrew Stuart, "the Bank will be out its money."
"On the contrary, I hope," said Gauthier Ralph, "that we shall lay our hands on the perpetrator of the theft. Police inspectors, very clever men, have been sent to America and Europe, to all the principal ports of embarkation and landing, and it will be hard for this gentleman to slip past them."
"But so a description of the thief exists?" asked Andrew Stuart.
"To begin with, he is not a thief," Gauthier Ralph replied gravely.
"What—not a thief, this individual who has made off with fifty-five thousand pounds in bank notes (1,375,000 francs)?"
"No," replied Gauthier Ralph.
"A man of industry, then?" said John Sullivan.
"The Morning Chronicle assures us that he is a gentleman."
The one who gave this answer was none other than Phileas Fogg, whose head then emerged from the flood of paper heaped around him. At the same time, Phileas Fogg greeted his colleagues, who returned his greeting.
The affair in question, which the various papers of the United Kingdom were discussing hotly, had taken place three days earlier, on the 29th of September. A bundle of bank notes, forming the enormous sum of fifty-five thousand pounds, had been lifted from the counter of the chief cashier of the Bank of England.
To anyone astonished that such a theft could have been carried out so easily, the deputy governor Gauthier Ralph merely replied that at that very moment the cashier was busy recording a receipt of three shillings sixpence, and that one cannot have an eye on everything.
But it is worth pointing out here—which makes the thing more understandable—that this admirable establishment, the Bank of England, seems to care enormously about the dignity of the public. No guards, no pensioners, no grilles! The gold, the silver, the notes are freely exposed and, so to speak, at the mercy of the first comer. One would not think of casting suspicion on the honor of any passerby whatever. One of the best observers of English customs even relates this: In one of the Bank's halls where he happened to be one day, he had the curiosity to look more closely at an ingot of gold weighing seven or eight pounds that lay exposed on the cashier's counter; he picked up this ingot, examined it, passed it to his neighbor, who passed it to another, so that the ingot, from hand to hand, went all the way to the end of a dark corridor, and did not come back for half an hour to resume its place, without the cashier so much as raising his head.
But on the 29th of September, things did not go quite like that. The bundle of bank notes did not come back, and when the magnificent clock set above the drawing office struck five, the closing of the offices, the Bank of England had nothing left to do but pass fifty-five thousand pounds to the profit-and-loss account.
The theft duly and properly acknowledged, agents, "detectives," chosen among the ablest, were sent to the principal ports—to Liverpool, to Glasgow, to Le Havre, to Suez, to Brindisi, to New York, and so on—with the promise, in case of success, of a reward of two thousand pounds (50,000 F) and five percent of the sum recovered. While awaiting the information the inquiry, begun at once, was to furnish, these inspectors had the task of scrupulously observing all arriving or departing travelers.
Now, precisely, as the Morning Chronicle said, there was reason to suppose that the perpetrator of the theft belonged to none of the gangs of thieves in England. During that day of the 29th of September, a well-dressed gentleman, of good manners, with a distinguished air, had been noticed coming and going in the payments hall, the scene of the theft. The inquiry had made it possible to reconstruct fairly exactly the description of this gentleman, a description that was at once sent to all the detectives of the United Kingdom and the Continent. A few clever minds—and Gauthier Ralph was among them—thus believed themselves justified in hoping that the thief would not escape.
As one can imagine, this affair was the talk of the day in London and throughout England. People debated it, took sides for or against the chances of the metropolitan police succeeding. So it will surprise no one to hear the members of the Reform Club taking up the same question, all the more so since one of the deputy governors of the Bank was among them.
The honorable Gauthier Ralph would not doubt the outcome of the search, reckoning that the reward offered ought to sharpen the zeal and the wits of the agents singularly. But his colleague, Andrew Stuart, was far from sharing this confidence. The discussion therefore went on among the gentlemen, who had sat down at a whist table, Stuart facing Flanagan, Fallentin facing Phileas Fogg. During the play, the players did not speak, but between the rubbers the interrupted conversation started up again livelier than ever.
"I maintain," said Andrew Stuart, "that the odds are in favor of the thief, who cannot fail to be a clever man!"
"Come now!" Ralph replied, "there is not a single country left where he could take refuge."
"Oh, really!"
"Where would you have him go?"
"I've no idea," replied Andrew Stuart, "but, after all, the earth is big enough."
"It used to be..." said Phileas Fogg under his breath. Then: "Yours to cut, sir," he added, holding out the cards to Thomas Flanagan.
The discussion was suspended during the rubber. But soon Andrew Stuart took it up again, saying:
"What do you mean, used to be! Has the earth shrunk, by any chance?"
"No doubt," replied Gauthier Ralph. "I am of Mr. Fogg's opinion. The earth has shrunk, since one now travels around it ten times faster than a century ago. And this is what, in the case we are dealing with, will make the search quicker."
"And will make the thief's escape easier too!"
"It's your play, Mr. Stuart!" said Phileas Fogg.
But the incredulous Stuart remained unconvinced, and, the hand finished:
"One must admit, Mr. Ralph," he went on, "that you have hit on an amusing way of saying the earth has shrunk! So because one now makes the tour of it in three months..."
"In eighty days only," said Phileas Fogg.
"Indeed, gentlemen," added John Sullivan, "eighty days, ever since the section between Rothal and Allahabad was opened on the Great Indian Peninsular Railway, and here is the reckoning drawn up by the Morning Chronicle:"
"From London to Suez by the Mont Cenis and Brindisi, railways and steamers: 7 days. From Suez to Bombay, steamer: 13 days. From Bombay to Calcutta, railway: 3 days. From Calcutta to Hong Kong (China), steamer: 13 days. From Hong Kong to Yokohama (Japan), steamer: 6 days. From Yokohama to San Francisco, steamer: 22 days. From San Francisco to New York, railroad: 7 days. From New York to London, steamer and railway: 9 days. Total: 80 days."
"Yes, eighty days!" cried Andrew Stuart, who in his distraction trumped a winning card, "but not counting bad weather, contrary winds, shipwrecks, derailments, and so on."
"All included," replied Phileas Fogg, continuing to play, for this time the discussion no longer respected the whist.
"Even if the Hindoos or the Indians tear up the rails!" cried Andrew Stuart, "if they stop the trains, plunder the luggage vans, scalp the passengers!"
"All included," replied Phileas Fogg, who, laying down his hand, added: "Two trump cards."
Andrew Stuart, whose deal it now was, gathered up the cards, saying:
"In theory, you are right, Mr. Fogg, but in practice..."
"In practice too, Mr. Stuart."
"I'd very much like to see you do it."
"It rests entirely with you. Let us set off together."
"Heaven forbid!" cried Stuart, "but I would readily wager four thousand pounds (100,000 F) that such a trip, carried out under these conditions, is impossible."
"Very possible, on the contrary," replied Mr. Fogg.
"Well then, do it!"
"Go around the world in eighty days?"
"Yes."
"I'm quite willing."
"When?"
"At once."
"This is madness!" cried Andrew Stuart, who was beginning to be irritated by his partner's insistence. "Look here! Let's rather play."
"Deal again, then," replied Phileas Fogg, "for there's a misdeal."
Andrew Stuart took up the cards with a feverish hand; then, all at once, laying them on the table:
"Well, yes, Mr. Fogg," he said, "yes, I bet four thousand pounds!..."
"My dear Stuart," said Fallentin, "calm yourself. This isn't serious."
"When I say I bet," replied Andrew Stuart, "it's always serious."
"So be it!" said Mr. Fogg. Then, turning to his colleagues:
"I have twenty thousand pounds (500,000 F) deposited with Baring Brothers. I will gladly risk it..."
"Twenty thousand pounds!" cried John Sullivan. "Twenty thousand pounds that an unforeseen delay could make you lose!"
"The unforeseen does not exist," Phileas Fogg replied simply.
"But, Mr. Fogg, this span of eighty days is calculated only as a minimum of time!"
"A minimum well used is enough for anything."
"But to avoid exceeding it, you have to jump mathematically from railways into steamers, and from steamers into railways!"
"I will jump mathematically."
"This is a joke!"
"A good Englishman never jokes when it comes to something as serious as a wager," replied Phileas Fogg. "I bet twenty thousand pounds against anyone who likes that I shall complete the tour of the earth in eighty days or less, that is, nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or one hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes. Will you accept?"
"We accept," answered Messrs. Stuart, Fallentin, Sullivan, Flanagan, and Ralph, once they had conferred among themselves.
"Good," said Mr. Fogg. "The Dover train leaves at eight forty-five. I shall take it."
"This very evening?" asked Stuart.
"This very evening," replied Phileas Fogg. "So," he added, consulting a pocket calendar, "seeing that today is Wednesday, October the 2nd, I am due back in London, in this same drawing room of the Reform Club, on Saturday, December the 21st, at forty-five minutes past eight in the evening, failing which the twenty thousand pounds now standing to my credit with Baring Brothers will pass to you in fact and in law, gentlemen.—Here is a check for that amount."
A written record of the wager was drawn up and signed on the spot by the six interested parties. Phileas Fogg had remained cool. He had certainly not bet to win, and had staked these twenty thousand pounds—half his fortune—only because he anticipated that he might need to spend the other half to carry through this difficult, not to say unworkable, project. As for his adversaries, they seemed moved, not on account of the value of the stake, but because they made it a kind of scruple to compete under such conditions.
Seven o'clock was then striking. Mr. Fogg was offered the chance to break off the whist so that he could make his preparations for departure.
"I am always ready!" replied this impassive gentleman, and dealing the cards:
"I turn up diamonds," he said. "It's your play, Mr. Stuart."