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Around the World in Eighty Days
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, standing there calm and just as before.
The reader will remember that at five minutes past eight in the evening, about twenty-five hours after the travellers' arrival in London.
Passepartout had been sent by his master to hire Reverend Samuel Wilson for a marriage 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 no man had been seen to run.
He overturned passers-by and rushed over the sidewalk like a waterspout.
In three minutes he was in Saville Row again, and staggered back into Mr. Fogg's room.
He couldn't speak, he stood there, pale and barely able to breathe.
"What's 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, had no time to think.
He left his house and jumped into a cab, promising a hundred pounds to the cabman.
He ran over two dogs and overturned five carriages before reaching 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 did he think he had arrived in London on Saturday the twenty-first of December?
In truth it was Friday the twentieth, only the seventy-ninth day since he left.
The cause of the error is very simple.
Phileas Fogg had, without suspecting it, gained one day on his journey.
This was merely because he had travelled constantly eastward, he'd, on the contrary, have lost a day had he gone westward.
By travelling east he moved with the sun, so each degree he crossed made his day four minutes shorter.
There are three hundred and sixty degrees around the earth.
Three hundred and sixty degrees times four minutes equals exactly twenty-four hours, the day gained without knowing.
Thus, while Phileas Fogg going eastward saw the sun cross the meridian eighty times, his friends in London saw it seventy-nine times.
This is why they awaited him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought.
Passepartout's famous family watch had always kept London time.
It would have shown the gained day if it had marked days as well as hours and 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 from Passepartout's share the cost of the gas burned in his room for nineteen hundred and twenty hours.
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's for me to ask that question. You were ruined, but now you're rich again."
"Pardon me, madam, my fortune belongs to you."
"If you hadn't suggested our marriage, my servant wouldn't have gone to the Reverend Samuel Wilson's, I shouldn't have been apprised of my error, and,"
"Dear Mr. Fogg!" said the young woman.
"Dear Aouda!" replied Phileas Fogg.
It needn't 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's 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 hadn't crossed India, I shouldn't have saved Aouda, she wouldn't 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?