A £20,000 wager is yet to come for the exceedingly precise, regular, and upright gentleman Phileas Fogg. In Around the World in Eighty Days — the latest addition to our Oxford Children’s Classics series — a retiring English gentleman must leave his home on Savile Row. But no gentleman is without a trusty valet.
Phileas Fogg sat squarely in his armchair, both feet together like a soldier on parade, hands firmly on knees, body erect, and head held high. He was watching the hand moving on the clock: a complicated apparatus that showed the hours, minutes, seconds, days, dates, and years. In keeping with his daily habit, Mr Fogg was due to go to the Reform Club on the stroke of 11.30.
A knock came on the door of the morning-room where Phileas Fogg was waiting. James Forster, the sacked servant, appeared.
‘The new valet,’ he announced.
A man of about thirty came in and bowed.
‘You are French and called John?’
‘Jean, if sir pleases — Jean Passepartout, a nickname that has stuck with me and was first applied due to my natural ability to get out of scrapes. I consider myself an honest fellow, sir, but if truth be told I have had several occupations. I used to be a wandering singer and a circus rider; I was a trapeze artist like Léotard and a tightrope walker like Blondin; then I became a gymnastics instructor in order to make greater use of my skills; and lastly I was a sergeant in the Paris Fire Brigade. I have some remarkable fires in my c.v. But I left France five years ago: wishing to try family life, I became a personal manservant in England. Then, finding myself without a job, I heard that Mr Phileas Fogg was the most particular and stay-at-home man in the whole of the United Kingdom. I presented myself at sir’s house in the hope of being able to live in peace and quiet and forget the very name of Passepartout… ’
‘Passepartout suits me very well. You have been recommended to me—I have excellent references on your account. Are you aware of my terms?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Very well, then. What time do you make it?’
‘Eleven twenty-two,’ replied Passepartout, pulling an enormous silver watch from the depths of his waistcoat pocket.
‘Your watch is slow.’
‘Pardon me, sir, but that’s impossible.’
‘You’re four minutes slow. It is of no consequence. What matters is to note the difference. So, starting from this moment, 11.29 a.m. on Wednesday, 2 October 1872, you are in my employ.’
Whereupon Phileas Fogg got up, took his hat in his left hand, placed it on his head with the action of an automaton, and vanished without uttering another word.
Passepartout heard the front door shut once: that was his new master going out; then a second time: his predecessor James Forster leaving in turn.
He stood alone in the house on Savile Row.
Join Phileas Fogg and Passepartout on their epic adventure as Fogg attempts to travel around the world in eighty days. He will have to use many modes of transport and journey through many different lands… but it will all be in vain if he can’t make it back to London in time to collect his winnings. Around the World in Eighty Days is a classic novel by Jules Verne, first published in 1873. Verne is a French author known for pioneering the science fiction genre — predicting air, space, and underwater travel before the machines to make it possible were invented.
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In the title of this posting and in the first sentence, you refer to the main character as “Phineas Fogg.” In the remainder of the entry you correctly refer to him as Phileas Fogg.