Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/289

 This resolution taken, it only remained to execute it. It was only after a long search that Passepartout found a native clothes dealer, to whom he told his want. The European garments pleased the man, and soon Passepartout came out wrapped in an old Japanese robe, and on his head a sort of one-sided turban, discolored by the action of the weather. But in return, a few small pieces of money jingled in his pocket.

"Good!" he thought, "I will fancy that we are in the carnival!"

Passepartout's first care, thus "Japanesed," was to enter a tea house of modest appearance, and there, with some remains of poultry and a few handfuls of rice, he breakfasted like a man for whom dinner would be still a problem to be solved.

"Now," he said to himself, when he had taken hearty refreshment, "the question is not to lose my head. I have no longer the resource of selling this garment for another still more Japanese. I must then consider the means of getting away as promptly as possible from this country of the sun, of which I shall preserve but a sorry recollection."

Passepartout then thought of visiting the steamers about to set sail for America. He counted on offering himself in the capacity of cook or servant, asking only his passage and his meals as his entire compensation. Once at San Francisco, he would see how he would get out of his scrape. The important thing was to traverse these four thousand, seven hundred miles of the Pacific stretching between Japan and the new world.

Passepartout, not being a man to let an idea languish, turned towards the port of Yokohama. But as he approached the docks, his plans, which had appeared so simple to him at the moment when he had the idea, seemed more and more difficult of execution. Why should they need a cook or servant aboard an American steamer, and what confidence would he inspire, muffled up in this manner? What recommendations would be of any service? What references could he give?

As he was thus reflecting, his eyes fell upon an immense placard which a sort of clown was carrying through the streets of Yokohama. This programme was thus worded in English: