"Quite well, and I too. I eat like a famished ogre; it's the sea air."

"But I never see your master on deck."

"Never; he hasn't the least curiosity."

"Do you know, Mr. Passepartout, that this pretended tour in eighty days
may conceal some secret errand--perhaps a diplomatic mission?"

"Faith, Monsieur Fix, I assure you I know nothing about it,
nor would I give half a crown to find out."

After this meeting, Passepartout and Fix got into the habit
of chatting together, the latter making it a point to gain
the worthy man's confidence. He frequently offered him a glass
of whiskey or pale ale in the steamer bar-room, which Passepartout
never failed to accept with graceful alacrity, mentally pronouncing
Fix the best of good fellows.

Meanwhile the Mongolia was pushing forward rapidly; on the 13th,
Mocha, surrounded by its ruined walls whereon date-trees were growing,
was sighted, and on the mountains beyond were espied vast coffee-fields.
Passepartout was ravished to behold this celebrated place, and thought that,
with its circular walls and dismantled fort, it looked like an immense
coffee-cup and saucer. The following night they passed through the Strait
of Bab-el-Mandeb, which means in Arabic The Bridge of Tears, and the
next day they put in at Steamer Point, north-west of Aden harbour,
to take in coal. This matter of fuelling steamers is a serious
one at such distances from the coal-mines; it costs the Peninsular
Company some eight hundred thousand pounds a year. In these