The Other Log of Phileas Fogg

chance favors the thief, who has to be a shrewd chap.”

Ralph said, “But where can he fly to? No country is safe for him.”

Stuart exclaimed with disbelief.

“Where would he go?” Ralph said.

Stuart snorted and said, “I don’t know. The world is big enough.”

And having provided an opening for Fogg, he waited.

Stuart is derived from “steward,” one who manages. And Stuart was an engineer in both a public and a private sense. He was, in fact, Fogg’s superior, for all Fogg knew, the head of the entire Eridanean Race. He was the steward, and he was chief engineer of the Race, natal and adopted.

“The world is big enough,” Stuart repeated.

Fogg said in a low voice, “It once was.”

He handed the reshuffled cards to Flanagan.

“Cut, sir.”

After the rubber, Stuart said, “What does your ‘once’ mean? Has the world grown smaller?”

Ralph said, “Indeed, I agree with Mr. Fogg. The world has grown somewhat smaller. A man can now go around it ten times more quickly than he could a hundred years ago. That is why the search for the thief is more likely to succeed.”

Stuart said, “But that is also why it is easier for the thief to get away.”

“Be so good as to play, Mr. Stuart,” Fogg said.

No one except Stuart was aware of the double meaning in this request.

Stuart was, it must be confessed, as keen a cardsharper as could be found. Even if he had had no native talent, he would have had to be dull indeed not to have profited by one hundred and fifty years of practice. Despite his ability to crook the cards, he was always honest. That is, he was unless the occasion required otherwise. In this case, the occasion required. And so Stuart laid down as his first card that which he had selected, the jack of diamonds. To all except Stuart and Fogg, it meant that diamonds would be trumps. To Fogg it was an order to bet, to take a dare, though not with the cards. What bet, what dare? That depended on Stuart’s conversation and Fogg’s ability to interpret.

When this rubber was over, Stuart said, “You have a strange way, Ralph, of proving that the world has gotten smaller. Thus, because you can go around it in three months…”

“Eighty days,” Fogg said.

Sullivan interrupted with a long explanation of why it would only take eighty days. The Great Indian Peninsula Railway had just opened a new section between Rothal and Allahabad, and this would reduce the traveling time enough to make it possible. The Daily Telegraph itself had made out a schedule whereby an intrepid, and lucky, traveler might proceed from London and circle the globe with enough speed to be back in London in eleven weeks and three days.

Stuart became so excited at this that he made a false deal. At least, he seemed to be excited. Fogg knew that the trey of diamonds meant: On the track. Go ahead.

Stuart then said that the schedule did not take into account bad weather, contrary winds, shipwrecks, railroad accidents, and other likely events.

“All included,” Fogg said. He had kept on playing even though the others had stopped.

Stuart was insistent. “Suppose the Hindus or American Indians pull up the rails? Suppose they stop the trains, clean out the baggage cars, scalp the passengers?”

“All included,” Fogg replied calmly. He threw down his cards. “Two trumps.”

The others looked surprised, not at his cards but at his talkativeness. And they found his attitude irritating. The mirror-smooth calmness and assumption of authority had been noticed by them before, but in general he was a decent chap. His peccadilloes were minor and forgivable because he was an eccentric. Englishmen then loved eccentrics, or at least respected them. But the world was much bigger then and there was room for the unconventionals.

It was Stuart’s turn to deal. While shuffling, he said, “Theoretically, you’re right, Mr. Fogg. But practically…”

“Practically also, Mr. Stuart.”

Mr. Stuart had hoped that someone besides himself would initiate the bet. Since this did not now seem likely, he would have to do it. He hoped that the inevitable Capellean-who was he? The servant nearby? Fallentin? Flanagan? Perhaps, perish the thought, Fogg himself?-would think that the bet had arisen naturally. Of course, they were on to Fogg now or at least suspected him. But he did not want them to suspect Stuart. Or, at least, to suspect no more than they did Fallentin, Flanagan, or Ralph.

In a somewhat indignant manner, he said, “I’d like to see you do it within eighty days.

“That,” Fogg said, “depends on you. Shall we go?”

Stuart replied that he would bet four thousand dollars that it could not be done.

Fogg calmly insisted that it was quite possible. One thing led to another, and so the famous wager was made. Fogg had a deposit of twenty thousand pounds at Baring’s. He would risk all of it.

Sullivan cried out, and we may judge the intensity of his passions-real or assumed-by the fact that an English gentleman would raise his voice inside the Reform Club. He cried out that Fogg would lose all by one accidental delay.

Phileas Fogg replied with his curious, and now classical, remark that the unforeseen does not exist.

Stuart may have shot a warning look. Any eavesdropping Capellean would fasten onto this, worry it as if he were a dog and it the bone, and find in the marrow a vast suspicion. He would wonder if some strange hands were being dealt by strange hands at this card table.

Or had Stuart sent the message that Fogg was to talk suspiciously?

The latter seems more likely, since Stuart’s plan was to use Fogg as a decoy. The time for laying low was over. Now there was a reason for bringing the enemy out, to mark them, and to put an end to them.

Where Stuart got his idea for exposing Fogg is not known. At least, the other log says nothing about its origin. Probably, Stuart was inspired when he read the model schedule for the eighty-day trip in The Daily Telegraph. Fogg would not find out until later why Stuart had decided to launch another campaign.

One of the players protested that eighty days was the least possible time to make the journey.

Mr. Fogg made another classical reply. “A well-used minimum suffices for everything.”

Another protest that, if he were to keep within the minimum, he would have to jump mathematically from trains to ships and back again.

Fogg made his third classical reply.

“1 will jump-mathematically.”

“You are joking.”

Fogg’s rejoinder was, in effect, that a true Englishman does not joke about such matters.

Convinced by this, the whist players decided to accept the wager.

Mr. Fogg then announced that the train left that evening for Dover at a quarter before nine. He would be on it.

He had not known about the bet until this hour, and he never took the train. How did he know the railway schedules? Had he memorized Bradshaw’s? In view of his other talents, this seems probable, though he must have done it sometime before 1866, as will be made clear in due course. Thus, he had no way of knowing that trains were still adhering to the schedules of that time. But he would have checked long before boarding, and no doubt he trusted in the resistance against change inherent in the English character.

After consulting his pocket almanac, he said, “Since today is Wednesday, second of October, I shall be due in London, in this very room, on Saturday, the twenty-first of December, at fifteen minutes before nine p.m. Otherwise, the twenty thousand pounds now deposited in my name at Baring’s is yours in fact and in right. Here is a check for the amount.”

Mr. Fogg’s total fortune was forty thousand pounds, but he foresaw having to spend half of that to win the twenty thousand. And this is so strange that it is surprising that no one has commented on it. Why should an eminently practical man, indeed, a far too practical man, one who conducted his life according to the laws of rational mechanics, make a bet like this? He was a man who had never given way to an impulse. Moreover, even if