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CHAPTER 37
In Which It Is Shown That Phileas Fogg
Gained Nothing By His Tour Around The World,
Unless It Were Happiness
Yes; Phileas Fogg in person.
The reader will remember that at five
minutes past eight in the evening-- about five
and twenty hours after the arrival of the
travellers in London-- Passepartout had been
sent by his master to engage the services of
the Reverend Samuel Wilson in a certain
marriage ceremony, which was to take place the
next day.
Passepartout went on his errand enchanted.
He soon reached the clergyman's house, but
found him not at home. Passepartout waited a
good twenty minutes, and when he left the
reverend gentleman, it was thirty-five minutes
past eight. But in what a state he was! With
his hair in disorder, and without his hat, he
ran along the street as never man was seen to
run before, overturning passers-by, rushing
over the sidewalk like a waterspout.
In three minutes he was in Saville Row
again, and staggered back into Mr. Fogg's
room.
He could not speak.
"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Fogg.
"My master!" gasped
Passepartout--"marriage--impossible--"
"Impossible?"
"Impossible--for to-morrow."
"Why so?"
"Because to-morrow--is Sunday!"
"Monday," replied Mr. Fogg.
"No--to-day is Saturday."
"Saturday? Impossible!"
"Yes, yes, yes, yes!" cried Passepartout.
"You have made a mistake of one day! We arrived
twenty-four hours ahead of time; but there are
only ten minutes left!"
Passepartout had seized his master by the
collar, and was dragging him along with
irresistible force.
Phileas Fogg, thus kidnapped, without having
time to think, left his house, jumped into a
cab, promised a hundred pounds to the cabman,
and, having run over two dogs and overturned
five carriages, reached the Reform Club.
The clock indicated a quarter before nine
when he appeared in the great saloon.
Phileas Fogg had accomplished the journey
round the world in eighty days!
Phileas Fogg had won his wager of twenty
thousand pounds!
How was it that a man so exact and
fastidious could have made this error of a day?
How came he to think that he had arrived in
London on Saturday, the twenty-first day of
December, when it was really Friday, the
twentieth, the seventy-ninth day only from his
departure?
The cause of the error is very simple.
Phileas Fogg had, without suspecting it,
gained one day on his journey, and this merely
because he had travelled constantly eastward;
he would, on the contrary, have lost a day had
he gone in the opposite direction, that is,
westward.
In journeying eastward he had gone towards
the sun, and the days therefore diminished for
him as many times four minutes as he crossed
degrees in this direction. There are three
hundred and sixty degrees on the circumference
of the earth; and these three hundred and sixty
degrees, multiplied by four minutes, gives
precisely twenty-four hours--that is, the day
unconsciously gained. In other words, while
Phileas Fogg, going eastward, saw the sun pass
the meridian eighty times, his friends in
London only saw it pass the meridian
seventy-nine times. This is why they awaited
him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not
Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought.
And Passepartout's famous family watch,
which had always kept London time, would have
betrayed this fact, if it had marked the days
as well as the hours and the minutes!
Phileas Fogg, then, had won the twenty
thousand pounds; but, as he had spent nearly
nineteen thousand on the way, the pecuniary
gain was small. His object was, however, to be
victorious, and not to win money. He divided
the one thousand pounds that remained between
Passepartout and the unfortunate Fix, against
whom he cherished no grudge. He deducted,
however, from Passepartout's share the cost of
the gas which had burned in his room for
nineteen hundred and twenty hours, for the sake
of regularity.
That evening, Mr. Fogg, as tranquil and
phlegmatic as ever, said to Aouda: "Is our
marriage still agreeable to you?"
"Mr. Fogg," replied she, "it is for me to
ask that question. You were ruined, but now you
are rich again."
"Pardon me, madam; my fortune belongs to
you. If you had not suggested our marriage, my
servant would not have gone to the Reverend
Samuel Wilson's, I should not have been
apprised of my error, and--"
"Dear Mr. Fogg!" said the young woman.
"Dear Aouda!" replied Phileas Fogg.
It need not be said that the marriage took
place forty-eight hours after, and that
Passepartout, glowing and dazzling, gave the
bride away. Had he not saved her, and was he
not entitled to this honour?
The next day, as soon as it was light,
Passepartout rapped vigorously at his master's
door. Mr. Fogg opened it, and asked, "What's
the matter, Passepartout?"
"What is it, sir? Why, I've just this
instant found out--"
"What?"
"That we might have made the tour of the
world in only seventy-eight days."
"No doubt," returned Mr. Fogg, "by not
crossing India. But if I had not crossed India,
I should not have saved Aouda; she would not
have been my wife, and--"
Mr. Fogg quietly shut the door.
Phileas Fogg had won his wager, and had made
his journey around the world in eighty days. To
do this he had employed every means of
conveyance--steamers, railways, carriages,
yachts, trading-vessels, sledges, elephants.
The eccentric gentleman had throughout
displayed all his marvellous qualities of
coolness and exactitude. But what then? What
had he really gained by all this trouble? What
had he brought back from this long and weary
journey?
Nothing, say you? Perhaps so; nothing but a
charming woman, who, strange as it may appear,
made him the happiest of men!
Truly, would you not for less than that make
the tour around the world?
End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Around
the World in 80 Days
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