Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/203

 "Well then, it will not agree with the sun."

"So much the worse for the sun, monsieur! The sun will be wrong then!" And the good fellow put his watch back in his fob with a magnificent gesture.

A few moments after Fix said to him: "You left London very hurriedly then?"

"I should think so! Last Wednesday, at eight o'clock in the evening, contrary to all his habits, Monsieur Fogg returned from his club, and in three-quarters of an hour afterward we were off."

"But where is your master going, then?"

"Right straight ahead! He is making the tour of the world!"

"The tour of the world?" cried Fix.

"Yes in eighty days! On a wager, he says; but, between ourselves, I do not believe it. There is no common sense in it. There must be something else."

"This Mr. Fogg is an original genius?"

"I should think so."

"Is he rich?"

"Evidently and he carries such a fine sum with him in fresh, new bank notes! And he doesn't spare his money on the route! Oh! but he has promised a splendid reward to the engineer of the Mongolia, if we arrive at Bombay considerably in advance!"

"And you have known him for a long time, this master of yours?"

"I," replied Passepartout, "I entered his service the very day of our departure."

The effect which these answers naturally produced upon the mind of the detective, already strained with excitement, may easily be imagined. This hurried departure from London so short a time after the robbery, this large sum carried away, this haste to arrive in distant countries, this pretext of an eccentric wager, all could have no other effect than to confirm Fix in his ideas. He kept the Frenchman talking, and learned to a certainty that this fellow did not know his master at all, that he lived isolated in London, that he was called rich without the source of his fortune being known, that he was a mysterious man, etc. But at the same time Fix was certain that Phileas Fogg would not get off at Suez, but that he was really going to Bombay.