AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS



Chapter I

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER,
THE ONE AS MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN


Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington
Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of
the most noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed
always to avoid attracting attention; an enigmatical personage,
about whom little was known, except that he was a polished man
of the world. People said that he resembled Byron--at least
that his head was Byronic; but he was a bearded, tranquil Byron,
who might live on a thousand years without growing old.

Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether Phileas Fogg
was a Londoner. He was never seen on 'Change, nor at the Bank,
nor in the counting-rooms of the "City"; no ships ever came into
London docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment;
he had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple,
or Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded
in the Court of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen's Bench,
or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer;
nor was he a merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange
to the scientific and learned societies, and he never was known
to take part in the sage deliberations of the Royal Institution