There was a rap on the door-foreseen? James Forster opened the door and said, “The new servant.”
Why did Forster thus announce the applicant? The new man had not yet been interviewed, let alone hired. Why would Forster speak as if the matter were settled? Was it a slip on his part, and the matter had indeed been predetermined?
If so, Fogg’s expression did not change, and Verne says nothing of Forster’s. Why should he? Verne knew nothing of what was taking place behind the scenes.
A man entered and bowed. He was short and stockily built; had a pleasant face with red cheeks and bright blue eyes; his hair was brown and always looked windblown.
Mr. Fogg said, “You are a Frenchman, I believe, and your name is John?”
“Jean, if monsieur pleases. Jean Passepartout…”
Fogg had given the first code of inquiry when he had asked him if his name were John. And the Parisian had replied with the password when he said his name was Passepartout. Just as the name of Fogg indicated a certain role in the organization, by a happy coincidence, so Passepartout indicated his role. But the Frenchman’s name was not the one with which he had been born. He had been dubbed Passepartout-“Passes everywhere”-for a good reason. It indicated more than the Frenchman’s wanderlust and instability.
Passepartout, at Fogg’s request, gave his background. He had been a wandering minstrel, though not necessarily of rags and tatters. He had also ridden horses in circuses, and he had danced on the high wire, like the famous Blondin. If Passepartout could emulate the feats of this fellow Gaul, as he hinted he could, then he should have stuck to the tightrope. It was Blondin who first crossed above Niagara Falls on a wire 160 feet above the water and 1,100 feet long. This he did many times, blindfolded, on stilts, carrying a man on his back, sitting down on a chair and eating a meal, and so on. Only eleven years ago he had appeared at the Crystal Palace in London and there, wearing stilts, had somersaulted on a rope 170 feet above the ground.
It was not to be supposed that Passepartout was the equal of Blondin, but he may not have been far behind in skill. In any event, he had quit the high wire to teach gymnastics for a while. Then he became a fireman in Paris, but he had quit that five years before to take up valeting in England.
Surely this was a strange switch of professions, but he explained that he was tired of the dangerous and the unsettling. He desired the quiet life. He was now out of a position, but, hearing of Mr. Fogg, than whom no one led a more strictly scheduled and peaceful life, he had presented himself as a desirable valet. He did not even want to use the name of Passepartout anymore.
Mr. Fogg said, “Passepartout suits me. You are well recommended to me. I hear a good report of you.”
This was strange, because from whom and when would Mr. Fogg have heard about Passepartout? Until a few hours ago, he had not even thought about getting a new servant. Since he had fired Forster and sent him out to get another servant, he had communicated with no one. He had neither inserted an ad in the papers, written a letter and received a reply, nor used the telephone. The latter he did not have, since Mr. Alexander Graham Bell was only twenty-six years old and a little less than four years from filing his patent on the electric speaking telephone.
Mr. Fogg could have sent Forster out to the nearest telegraph office, but Verne says nothing of this. No, just as Forster’s introduction of Passepartout was a slip on his part, so Fogg’s comment on the recommendation was his slip. The question is, were these slips intentionally made to affect the hypothetical hidden observer in a certain fashion? If the unforeseen truly did not exist for Fogg, would he have slipped? And if Fogg made a mistake on purpose, then it’s safe to presume that Forster did so, too. This means that all three, Fogg, Passepartout, and Forster, were cognizant of a certain plan.
“You know my conditions?” Fogg said.
The Frenchman’s answer indicated that Forster had filled him in on the way from the agency.
Fogg then asked Passepartout what time it was. The Frenchman drew an enormous silver watch from his vest pocket, looked at it, and said, “Twenty-two minutes after eleven.”
“You are too slow,” Mr. Fogg said.
Passepartout replied that that was impossible.
Fogg said, coldly, “You are four minutes too slow. No matter. It’s enough to mention this error. Now from this moment, twenty-six minutes after eleven o’clock, this Wednesday, the second of October, you are in my service.”
Phileas Fogg rose, took his hat in his left hand, put it on his head, and walked out.
Mr. Fogg was thoroughly satisfied that Passepartout was the man sent to help him in his new venture, whatever that was to be. Forster had checked him with certain passphrases at the agency. The bit about Passepartout’s watch being slow had been another method of identification. In addition, the Frenchman’s name had indicated his function, and the “enormous” watch was so large because it contained more than a timepiece. Mr. Fogg’s taking his hat with his left hand had been the final signal, since he was right-handed. If he were left-handed, he would have used the right. Passepartout had observed his last confirmation and so was also pleased.
After Fogg left the room, he stood listening for a moment. The door to the street shut. That would be his ally and master leaving at exactly 11:30 a.m. A few seconds later, the door closed again. That would be James Forster going to wherever the plan dictated. There Forster would make another move in the secret and martial chess game that had been going on for two-hundred years between the Eridaneans and the Capelleans.
2
The Reform Club toward which Mr. Fogg proceeded at an exact velocity was only one-thousand-and-one-hundred-and-fifty-one paces from Mr. Fogg’s house on Savile Row. Verne does not say what transpired during Fogg’s walk. For him, the ordinary would not have been worth describing, and the extraordinary was not reported to him. However, the ordinary of our day and Fogg’s may be contrasted for the benefit of the reader. The Londoner of 1872 had his own brand of smog. Indeed, the word, formed from smoke and fog, is of London origin. The smoke of hundreds of thousands of industrial and domestic furnaces and stoves burning soft coal often darkened the skies and laid a sooty film over everything. It also gave the London air a rather acrid odor and doubtless contributed to the generation of tuberculosis and other diseases of the lung.
Another odor, not unpleasant under certain conditions and when in not too great quantities, emanated from the horse droppings. These littered the streets from West End to East End. During the dry periods, clouds of manure rose to mingle with coal dust and dirt dust as the wheels of carriages struck the piles. Mingled with these were the huge and pestiferous horseflies that were once a familiar and seemingly permanent part of the civilized world. This, however, was October, and the chilly nights of the past few weeks had considerably discouraged the activities of these insects.
Mr. Fogg walked on the sidewalk from No. 7, Savile Row, turned left onto Vigo Street, after a few paces crossed Vigo to Sackville Street, and proceeded along it until he came to Piccadilly. Having traversed this with no apparent attention to the hansoms and vans which filled this main thoroughfare (London traffic was a nuisance and a danger a century ago), he walked eastward until he reached the narrow Church Street. Here he turned right and, coming to Jermyn Street, turned right again, walked a few paces, and then went across Jermyn to enter the Duke of York’s. This led him to St. James Square. Having passed along this, he crossed Pall Mall to the Reform Club. This imposing and famed edifice is neighbor to the Traveler’s Club, which admits no one as a member who has not journeyed at least five-hundred miles in a straight line from London. Although Mr. Fogg could easily have joined this club both before and after his dash around the globe, he was never a member.