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Around the World in Eighty Days
Chapter 5. IN WHICH A NEW SPECIES OF FUNDS, UNKNOWN TO THE MONEYED MEN, APPEARS ON 'CHANGE
Phileas Fogg rightly suspected that his leaving London would make a big talk in the West End.
The news of the bet spread through the Reform Club and gave the members an exciting subject to talk about.
From the club it soon got into the papers across England.
The proud "tour of the world" was talked about, argued about, and debated with as much heat as if it were another Alabama claim.
Some took Phileas Fogg's side, but most shook their heads and spoke against him.
They said it was absurd and impossible to go round the world in so little time with present travel, only on paper.
The Times, Standard, Morning Post, Daily News and twenty other well known papers called Mr. Fogg's plan crazy.
Only the Daily Telegraph gave him weak support.
People in general thought he was mad and blamed his Reform Club friends for taking a bet that showed their friend's bad judgment.
Articles with strong feeling and clear reason were written on the question, for geography is a favourite subject of the English.
The pages about Phileas Fogg's plan were read eagerly by all types of readers.
At first some bold people, mostly women, took his side.
His cause became more popular when the Illustrated London News printed his picture taken from a photograph in the Reform Club.
A few readers of the Daily Telegraph even dared to say, "Why not, after all? Stranger things have happened."
At last a long piece came out on the 7th of October in the bulletin of the Royal Geographical Society.
It looked at the matter from every side and showed the clear foolishness of the plan.
It said everything was against the traveller, every problem set by man and by nature.
A strange match of train and ship times, which was impossible, was needed for success.
He might hope for trains to come on set hours in Europe, where distances are smaller.
But if he counted on going across India in three days and the United States in seven, could he trust to get it done?
Machines break down, Trains can leave the track.
There can be crashes, bad weather, snow blocking the line.
Weren't all these against Phileas Fogg?
Would he not be, on steamers in winter, at the mercy of wind and fog?
Is it not common for good ocean steamers to be two or three days late?
But one delay would be enough to break the chain of travel.
If Phileas Fogg once missed a ship, even by an hour, he'd have to wait for the next and that would make his attempt useless.
This article made a lot of noise and, being copied into all the papers, it hit hard the supporters of the rash traveller.
Everybody knows England is the land of betting men, who are higher than simple gamblers.
To bet is in the English character.
Not only the Reform members but the public made heavy bets for or against Phileas Fogg.
He was put into the betting books as if he were a race horse.
Bonds were made and appeared on 'Change.
"Phileas Fogg bonds" were sold at face value or at a higher price and a big trade was done in them.
But five days after the Geographical Society piece came out, demand began to fall.
"Phileas Fogg" went down.
They were offered in packages, first of five.
Then of ten, until at last nobody would take less than twenty, fifty or a hundred.
Lord Albemarle, an old paralysed gentleman, was now the only supporter of Phileas Fogg left.
This noble lord, who was fixed to his chair, would have given his fortune to be able to make the tour of the world.
Even if it took ten years, he bet five thousand pounds on Phileas Fogg.
When people showed him the folly and the uselessness of the trip, he only answered,
"If the thing can be done, the first to do it should be an Englishman."
The Fogg group got smaller and smaller, everybody was against him, and the odds were a hundred and fifty and two hundred to one.
A week after he left, an event happened that took away his backers at any price.
The commissioner of police was sitting in his office at nine one evening when this telegraph message was put into his hands,
Suez to London. Important telegraph sent from Suez at nine this evening.
ROWAN, COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, SCOTLAND YARD, I've found the bank robber, Phileas Fogg.
Send without delay warrant of arrest to Bombay.
FIX, Detective. Sent from Suez at nine o'clock this evening.
The effect of this message was instant.
The polite gentleman vanished and the bank robber took his place.
His photograph, which hung with the others at the Reform Club, was looked at very closely.
It showed, feature by feature, the same description of the robber that the police had been given.
Phileas Fogg's strange habits were remembered, his lonely ways, his sudden leaving.
It seemed clear that he was going round the world as an excuse for a bet.
He had no other aim than to get away from the detectives and hide his track.