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05 - Around The World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne · Classic Science Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: Chapter five, in which a new species of funds, unknown
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  Speaker 1: to the moneyed men, appears on Change. Phileas Fogg rightly
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  Speaker 1: suspected that his departure from London would create a lively
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  Speaker 1: sensation at the West End. The news of the bet
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  Speaker 1: spread through the Reform Club and afforded an exciting topic
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  Speaker 1: of conversation to its members. From the club, it soon
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  Speaker 1: got into the papers throughout England. The boasted tour of
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  Speaker 1: the World was talked about, disputed, argued with as much
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  Speaker 1: warmth as if the subject was another Alabama claim. Some
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  Speaker 1: took sides with Phileas Fogg, but the large majority shook
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  Speaker 1: their heads and declared against him. It was absurd, impossible.
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  Speaker 1: They declared that the tour of the world could be
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  Speaker 1: made except theoretically and on paper, in this minimum of
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  Speaker 1: time and with the existing means of traveling. The Times, Standard,
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  Speaker 1: Morning Post and Daily News and twenty other highly respectable
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  Speaker 1: newspapers scouted mister Fogg's project as madness. The Daily Telegraph
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  Speaker 1: alone hesitatingly supported him. People in general thought him a
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  Speaker 1: lunatic and blamed his Reform Club friends for having accepted
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  Speaker 1: a wager which portrayed the mental aberration of its proposer.
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  Speaker 1: Articles no less passionate than logical appeared on this question,
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  Speaker 1: for geography is one of the pet subjects of the
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  Speaker 1: English and the columns devoted to Phileas Fogg's venture were
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  Speaker 1: eagerly devoured by all classes of readers. At first, some
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  Speaker 1: rash individuals, principally of the gentler sex, espoused his cause,
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  Speaker 1: which became still more popular when the Illustrated London News
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  Speaker 1: came out with his portrait copied from a photograph, and
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  Speaker 1: the Reform Club. A few readers of the Daily Telegraph
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  Speaker 1: even dared to say, why not, after all stranger things
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  Speaker 1: have come to pass. At last, a long article appeared
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  Speaker 1: on the seventh of October in the Bulletin of the
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  Speaker 1: Royal Geographical Society, which treated the question from every point
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  Speaker 1: of view and demonstrated the utter folly of the enterprise.
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  Speaker 1: Everything it said was against the travelers, every obstacle imposed
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  Speaker 1: alike by man and by nature. A miraculous agreement of
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  Speaker 1: the times of departure and arrival, which was impossible, was
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  Speaker 1: absolutely necessary to his success. He might perhaps reckon on
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  Speaker 1: the arrival of trains at the designated hours in Europe,
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  Speaker 1: where the distances were relatively moderate. But when he calculated
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  Speaker 1: upon crossing India in three days and the United States
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  Speaker 1: in seven, could he rely beyond misgiving upon accomplishing his task.
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  Speaker 1: There were accidents to machinery, the liability of trains to
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  Speaker 1: run off the line, collisions, bad weather, the blocking up
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  Speaker 1: by snow. Were not all these against Phileas Fogg. Would
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  Speaker 1: he not find himself when traveling by steamer in winter
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  Speaker 1: at the mercy of the winds and fogs. Is it
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  Speaker 1: uncommon for the best ocean steamers to be two or
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  Speaker 1: three days behind time. But a single delay would suffice
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  Speaker 1: to fatally break the chain of communication. Should Phileas Fogg
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  Speaker 1: once miss even by an hour a steamer, he would
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  Speaker 1: have had to wait for the next and that would
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  Speaker 1: irrevocably render his attempt vain. This article made a great
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  Speaker 1: deal of noise, and being copied into all the papers,
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  Speaker 1: seriously depressed the advocates of the rash tourist. Everybody knows
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  Speaker 1: that England is the world of betting men who are
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  Speaker 1: of a higher class than mere gamblers. To bet is
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  Speaker 1: in the English temperament. Not only the members of the
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  Speaker 1: Reform but the general public made heavy wages for or
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  Speaker 1: against Phileas Fogg, who set down in the betting books
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  Speaker 1: as if he were a race horse. Bonds were issued
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  Speaker 1: and made their appearance on change Phileas Fogg. Bonds were
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  Speaker 1: offered at par or at a premium, and a great
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  Speaker 1: business was done in them. But five days after the
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  Speaker 1: article in the Bulletin of the Geographical Society appeared, the
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  Speaker 1: demand began to subside. Phileas Fogg declined. They were offered
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  Speaker 1: by packages at first of five, then of ten, until
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  Speaker 1: at last nobody would take less than twenty fifty a hundred.
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  Speaker 1: Lord Albemarle, an elderly paralytic gentleman, was now the only
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  Speaker 1: advocate of Phileas Fogg left. This noble lord, who was
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  Speaker 1: fastened to his chair, would have given his fortune to
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  Speaker 1: be able to make the tour of the world if
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  Speaker 1: it took ten years, and he bet five thousand pounds
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  Speaker 1: on Phileas Fogg. When the folly, as well as the
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  Speaker 1: uselessness of the adventure, was pointed out to him, he
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  Speaker 1: contented himself with replying, if a thing is feasible, the
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  Speaker 1: first to do it ought to be an Englishman. The
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  Speaker 1: Fog party dwindled more and more. Everybody was going against him,
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  Speaker 1: and the bets stood one hundred and fifty and two
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  Speaker 1: hundred to one, and a week after his departure an
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  Speaker 1: incident occurred which deprived him of backers at any price.
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  Speaker 1: The Commissioner of Police was sitting in his office at
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  Speaker 1: nine o'clock one evening when the following telegraphic dispatch was
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  Speaker 1: put into his hands Suez to London Rowan, Commissioner of Police,
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  Speaker 1: Scotland Yard, I've found the bank robber Phileas Fogg. Send
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  Speaker 1: without delay warrant of arrest to Bombay, signed Fix Detective.
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  Speaker 1: The effect of this dispatch was instantaneous, the polished gentleman
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  Speaker 1: and disappeared to give place to the bank robber. His photograph,
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  Speaker 1: which was hung with those of the rest of the
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  Speaker 1: members at the Reform Club, was minutely examined, and it
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  Speaker 1: betrayed feature by feature the description of the robber which
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  Speaker 1: had been provided to the police. The mysterious habits of
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  Speaker 1: Phileas Fogg were recalled, his solitary ways, his sudden departure,
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  Speaker 1: and it seemed clear that in undertaking a tour round
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  Speaker 1: the world on the pretext of a wager, he had
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  Speaker 1: had no other end in view than to elude the
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  Speaker 1: detectives and throw them off his track. End of chapter