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

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