Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/179

Rh Passepartout heard the street door close once; it was his new master going out; then a second time; it was his predecessor, James Forster, departing in his turn. Passepartout remained alone in the house in Saville Row.

my word," said Passepartout to himself, first, "I have known at Madame Tussaud's good people as lively as my new master!" Madame Tussaud's "good people" are wax figures, much visited in London, who, indeed, are only wanting in speech.

During the few minutes that he had interviewed Phileas Fogg, Passepartout had examined his future master, rapidly but carefully. He was a man that might be forty years old, of fine handsome face, of tall figure, which a slight corpulence did not misbecome, his hair and whiskers light, his forehead compact, without appearance of wrinkles at the temples, his face rather pale than flushed, his teeth magnificent. He appeared to possess in the highest degree what physiognomists call "repose in action," a quality common to those who do more work than talking. Calm, phlegmatic, with a clear eye and immovable eyelid, he was the finished type of those cool-blooded Englishmen so frequently met in the United Kingdom, and whose somewhat academic posture Angelica Kauffman has marvelously reproduced under her pencil. Seen in the various acts of his existence, this gentleman gave the idea of a well-balanced being in all his parts, evenly hung, as perfect as a chronometer. Indeed, Phileas Fogg was exactness personified, which was seen clearly from "the expression of his feet and his hands," for with man, as well as with the animals, the limbs themselves are organs expressive of the passions.

Phileas Fogg was one of those mathematically exact people, who, never hurried and always ready, are economical of the steps and their motions. He never made one stride too many, always going by the shortest route. He did not give an idle look. He did not allow himself a superfluous gesture. He had never been seen moved or troubled. He