Jules Verne · a new plain-English translation from the original language
At twenty-five past seven, Phileas Fogg, having won a score of guineas at whist, took leave of his honorable colleagues and left the Reform Club. At ten to eight, he opened the door of his house and went in.
Passepartout, who had conscientiously studied his schedule, was rather surprised to see Mr. Fogg, guilty of inexactitude, appear at this unusual hour. According to the notice, the tenant of Saville Row was not to come home until midnight exactly.
Phileas Fogg had first gone up to his room, then he called:
"Passepartout."
Passepartout did not answer. This call could not be meant for him. It was not the hour.
"Passepartout," Mr. Fogg said again, without raising his voice any further.
Passepartout appeared.
"That's the second time I've called you," said Mr. Fogg.
"But it isn't midnight," replied Passepartout, his watch in hand.
"I know," Phileas Fogg went on, "and I'm not reproaching you. We leave in ten minutes for Dover and Calais."
A sort of grimace took shape on the Frenchman's round face. It was plain that he had misheard.
"Monsieur is going away?" he asked.
"Yes," replied Phileas Fogg. "We are going to make the tour of the world."
Passepartout, his eye immoderately wide, eyelid and eyebrow raised, arms slack, body sagging, then presented every symptom of astonishment carried to the point of stupor.
"The tour of the world!" he murmured.
"In eighty days," replied Mr. Fogg. "So we haven't a moment to lose."
"But the trunks?..." said Passepartout, unconsciously swaying his head from side to side.
"No trunks. Only an overnight bag. Inside, two woolen shirts, three pairs of stockings. The same for you. We'll buy along the way. You'll bring down my mackintosh and my traveling blanket. Have good shoes. Besides, we'll walk little or not at all. Go."
Passepartout would have liked to reply. He could not. He left Mr. Fogg's room, went up to his own, dropped onto a chair, and, using a rather vulgar phrase of his own country:
"Well, that's a good one!" he said to himself, "that really takes the cake! And here I was wanting to keep quiet!..."
And, mechanically, he set about his preparations for departure. A tour of the world in eighty days! Was he dealing with a madman? No... Was it a joke? They were going to Dover, fine. To Calais, all right. After all, that couldn't much upset the good fellow, who for five years had not trodden the soil of his homeland. Perhaps they would even go as far as Paris, and, my word, he would gladly see the great capital again. But surely a gentleman so sparing of his steps would stop there... Yes, no doubt, but it was nonetheless true that he was leaving, that he was traveling, this gentleman, so stay-at-home until now!
At eight o'clock, Passepartout had prepared the modest bag that held his own wardrobe and his master's; then, his mind still troubled, he left his room, whose door he carefully shut, and he rejoined Mr. Fogg.
Mr. Fogg was ready. He carried under his arm Bradshaw's Continental Railway Steam Transit and General Guide, which was to furnish him all the information necessary for his journey. He took the bag from Passepartout's hands, opened it, and slipped into it a thick bundle of those fine bank notes that pass current in every country.
"You've forgotten nothing?" he asked.
"Nothing, sir."
"My mackintosh and my blanket?"
"Here they are."
"Good, take this bag."
Mr. Fogg handed the bag back to Passepartout.
"And take care of it," he added. "There are twenty thousand pounds inside (500,000 F)."
The bag nearly slipped from Passepartout's hands, as if the twenty thousand pounds had been in gold and weighed considerably.
Master and servant then went down, and the street door was double-locked.
A cab stand stood at the end of Saville Row. Phileas Fogg and his servant got into a cab, which drove quickly toward Charing Cross station, where one of the branches of the South Eastern Railway ends.
At twenty past eight, the cab stopped before the station gate. Passepartout jumped down. His master followed him and paid the driver.
At that moment, a poor beggar woman, holding a child by the hand, barefoot in the mud, wearing a battered hat from which hung a pitiful feather, a tattered shawl over her rags, approached Mr. Fogg and asked him for alms.
Mr. Fogg drew from his pocket the twenty guineas he had just now won at whist, and, holding them out to the beggar woman:
"Here, my good woman," he said, "I'm glad to have met you!"
Then he passed on.
Passepartout felt something like a moistness around his eye. His master had taken a step into his heart.
Mr. Fogg and he went at once into the great hall of the station. There Phileas Fogg gave Passepartout the order to take two first-class tickets to Paris. Then, turning around, he caught sight of his five colleagues from the Reform Club.
"Gentlemen, I am off," he said, "and the various visas stamped on a passport I am taking along for the purpose will let you, on my return, verify my itinerary."
"Oh, Mr. Fogg," Gauthier Ralph replied politely, "that's unnecessary. We shall rely on your honor as a gentleman!"
"It's better this way," said Mr. Fogg.
"You don't forget that you're to be back?..." Andrew Stuart remarked.
"In eighty days," replied Mr. Fogg, "on Saturday the 21st of December, 1872, at forty-five minutes past eight in the evening. Goodbye, gentlemen."
At twenty to nine, Phileas Fogg and his servant took their seats in the same compartment. At eight forty-five, a whistle blew, and the train started off.
The night was black. A fine rain was falling. Phileas Fogg, leaning back in his corner, did not speak. Passepartout, still dazed, mechanically hugged the bag of bank notes against himself.
But the train had not passed Sydenham when Passepartout let out a veritable cry of despair!
"What's the matter with you?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"It's... that... in my haste... my confusion... I forgot..."
"Forgot what?"
"To turn off the gas jet in my room!"
"Well, my boy," Mr. Fogg replied coolly, "it burns on your account!"