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01 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne · Thrilling Adventures - Daily

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  Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, Chapter one, in which
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  Phileas Fogg and Passepartou accept each other. The one is master, the other
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  as man. Mister Phileas Fogg lived in eighteen seventy two at number seven Savile
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  Row, Burlington Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in eighteen fourteen.
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  He was one of the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he
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  seemed always to avoid attracting attention, and enigmatical personage about whom little was known
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  except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he
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  resembled Byron at least, that his head was byronic. But he was a
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  bearded, tranquil Byron who might live on a thousand years without growing old.
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  Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg was a Londoner.
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  He was never seen on change, nor at the bank, nor in the
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  counting rooms of the city. No ships ever came into London Docks, of
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  which he was the owner. He had no public employment. He had never
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  been entered at any of the inns of court, either at the Temple or
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  Lincoln's Inn or Gray's inn, nor had his voice ever resounded in the Court
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  of Chancery, or in the exchequer, or the Queen's branch or the ecclesiastical
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  courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer, nor was he a merchant or
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  a gentleman farmer. His name was strange to the scientific and learned societies,
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  and he never was known to take part in the sage deliberations of the Royal
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  Institution or the London Institution, the Artisans Association, or the Institution of Arts
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  and Sciences. He belonged, in fact, to none of the numerous societies
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  which swarm in the English capitol, from the Harmonic to that of the Entomologists,
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  founded mainly for the purpose of abolishing pernicious insects. Phileas Fogg was a
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  member of the reform and that was all. The way in which he got
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  admission to this exclusive club was simple enough. He was recommended by the bearings
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  with whom he had an open credit. His checks were regularly paid at sight
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  from his account current, which was always flush. Was Phileas Fogg rich,
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  undoubtedly, but those who knew him best could not imagine how he had made
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  his fortune. And mister Fogg was the last person to whom to apply for
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  the information. He was not lavish, nor on the contrary, avaricious,
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  For whenever he knew that money was needed for a noble, useful, or
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  benevolent purpose, he supplied it quietly and sometimes anonymously. He was, in
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  short, the least communecative of men. He talked very little, and seemed
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  all the more mysterious for his taciturn manner. His daily habits were quite open
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  to observation. But whatever he did was so exactly the same thing that he'd
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  always done before that the wits of the curious were fairly puzzled. Had he
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  traveled, it was likely, for no one seemed to know the world more
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  familiarly. There was no spot so secluded that he did not appear to have
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  an intimate acquaintance with it. He often corrected with a few clear words the
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  thousand conjectures advanced by members of the club as to lost and unheard of travelers,
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  pointing out the true probabilities, and seeming as if gifted with a sort
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  of second sight. So often did events justify his predictions. He must have
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  traveled everywhere, at least in the spirit. It was at least certain that
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  Phileas Fogg had not absented himself from London for many years. Those who were
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  honored by a better acquaintance with him than the rest declared that nobody could pretend
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  to have ever seen him anywhere else. His soul pastimes were reading the papers
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  and playing whisked. He often wanted this game, which, as a silent
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  one, harmonized with his nature, but his winnings never went into his purse,
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  being reserved as a fund for his charities. Mister Fogg played not to
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  win, but for the sake of playing. The game was, in his
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  eyes a contest, a struggle with a difficulty, yet a motionless, unwearying
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  struggle congenial to his tastes. Phileas Fogg was not known to have either wife
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  or children, which may happen to the most honest people, either relatives or
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  near friends, which is certainly more unusual. He lived alone in his house
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  in Saville Road, whither none penetrated a single domestic sufficed to serve him.
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  He breakfasted and dined at the club at hours mathematically fixed in the same room
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  at the same table, never taking his meals with other members, much less
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  bringing a guest with him. And went home at exactly midnight, only retire
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  at once to bed. He never used the cozy chambers which the Reform provides
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  for its favored members. He passed ten hours out of the twenty four in
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  Savile row, either in sleeping or making his toilet. When he chose to
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  take a walk, it was with a regular step in the entrance hall,
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  with its mosaic flooring, or in the circular gallery, with its domes supported
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  by twenty red porphyri ionic columns and illumined by blue painted windows. When he
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  breakfasted or dined, all the resources of the club, its kitchens and pantries,
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  its buttery and dairy, added to crowd his table with their most succulent
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  stores. He was served by the gravest waiters, in dress coats and shoes
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  with swan skin soles, who proffered the viands in special porcelain and on the
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  finest linen. Club decanters of a lost mold contained his sherry, his port,
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  and his cinnamon spiced claret, while his beverages were refreshingly cooled with ice
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  brought it great cost from the American lakes. If to live in this style
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  is to be eccentric. It must be confessed that there is something good in
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  eccentricity. The mansion in saville Row, though not sumptuous, was exceedingly comfortable.
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  The habits of its occupant were such as to demand but little from the
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  soul domestic, but Phileas Fogg required him to be almost superhumanly prompt and regular.
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  On this very second of Ice October, he had dismissed James Forster because
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  that luckless youth had brought him shaving water at eighty four degrees fahrenheit instead of
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  eighty six. And he was awaiting his successor, who was due at the
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  house between eleven and half past. Phileas Fogg was seated squarely in his arm
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  chair, his feet close together like those of a grenadier on parade, his
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  hands resting on his knees, his body straight, his head erect. He
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  was steadily watching a complicated clock which indicated the hours, the minutes, the
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  seconds, the days, the months and the years. At exactly half past
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  eleven, mister Fogg would, according to his daily habit, quit savle Row
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  and repair to the reform. A rap at this moment sounded on the door
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  of the cozy apartment, where Phileas Fogg was seated and James Forster, the
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  dismissed servant, appeared. He's a new servant, said he, a young
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  man of thirty advanced and bowed. You are a Frenchman, I believe,
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  asked Phileas Fogg. And your name is John Jean, if Monsieur pleases,
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  replied the newcomer, Jean passepartout and surname which has clung to me because I
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  have a natural aptness for going out of one business into another. I believe
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  I'm honest, monsieur, But to be outspoken, I've had several trades.
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  I've been an itinerant, singer, a circus rider when I used to vault
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  like leotard and dance on a rope like blondin. Then I got to be
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  a professor of gymnastics so as to make better use of my talents. And
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  then there was a sergeant Fiderman at Paris and assisted it many a big fire.
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  But I quitted Franz five years ago, and, wishing to taste the
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  sweets of domestic Lifefe took service as a valet here in England, finding myself
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  out of place and hearing that Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most exact and settled
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  gentleman in the United Kingdom. I have come to Monsieur in the hope of
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  living with him a tranquil life and forgetting even the name of passe Partout.
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  Pass Partout suits me, responded mister Fogg, you are well recommended to me.
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  I hear a good report of you. You know my conditions, yes,
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  messieur good. What time is it? Twenty two minutes after eleven,
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  returned Passepartout, drawing an enormous silver watch from the depths of his pocket.
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  You are too slow, said mister Fogg. Pardon me, monsieur, it
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  is impossible. You are four minutes too slow. No matter, It's enough
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  to mention the error now from this moment twenty nine minutes after eleven a m.
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  This Wednesday, second October, you are in my service. Phileas Fogg
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  got up, took his hat in his left hand, put it on his
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  head with an automatic motion, and went off without a word. Passepartout heard
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  the street door shut once. It was his new master going out. He
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  heard it shut again. It was his predecessor, James Forster, departing in
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  his turn. Passepartout remained alone in the house in savile row. End of chapter