Page:Works of Jules Verne - Parke - Vol 7.djvu/361

 What an effect, what an excitement in the papers! All the betters for or against, who had already forgotten this affair, revived as if by magic. All the transactions became of value. All the engagements were renewed, and it must be said that betting was resumed with new energy. The name of Phileas Fogg was again at a premium on the market.

The five colleagues of the gentleman, at the Reform Club, passed these three days in some uneasiness. Would this Phileas Fogg, whom they had forgotten, reappear before their eyes? Where was he at this moment? On the 17th of December—the day that James Strand was arrested—it was seventy-six days since Phileas Fogg started, and no news from him! Was he dead? Had he given up the effort, or was he continuing his course as agreed upon? And would he appear on Saturday, the 21st of December, at a quarter before nine in the evening, the very impersonation of exactness, on the threshold of the saloon of the Reform Club?

We must give up the effort to depict the anxiety in which for three days all of London society lived. They sent dispatches to America, to Asia, to get news of Phileas Fogg. They sent morning and evening to watch the house in Saville Row. Nothing there. The police themselves did not know what had become of the detective Fix, who had so unfortunately thrown himself on a false scent. This did not prevent bets from being entered into anew on a larger scale. Phileas Fogg, like a race-horse, was coming to the last turn. He was quoted no longer at one hundred, but at twenty, ten, five; and the old paralytic Lord Albemarle bet even in his favor.

So that on Saturday evening there was a crowd in Pall Mall and in the neighboring streets. It might have been supposed that there was an immense crowd of brokers permanently established around the Reform Club. Circulation was impeded. They discussed, disputed, and cried the prices of "Phileas Fogg," like they did those of English Consols. The policemen had much difficulty in keeping the crowd back, and in proportion as the hour approached at which Phileas Fogg ought to arrive, the excitement took incredible proportions.

This evening, the five colleagues of the gentleman were