Jules Verne - Around the World in Eighty Days

Phileas Fogg, squarely seated in his armchair, his feet close together like those of a soldier on parade, his hands resting on his knees, his body straight, his head erect, was watching the hand of the clock move—a complicated mechanism which indicated the hours, the minutes, the seconds, the days, the days of the month, and the year. At the stroke of half-past eleven Mr Fogg would, according to his daily habit, leave his house and repair to the Reform Club.

At this moment, there was a knock at the door of the small parlour in which was Phileas Fogg.

James Forster, the dismissed servant, appeared.

“The new servant,” said he.

A young man, aged thirty years, came forward and bowed.

“You are a Frenchman, and your name is John?” Phileas Fogg asked him.

“Jean, if it does not displease Monsieur,” replied the newcomer. “Jean Passepartout, a surname which has clung to me and which my natural aptitude for withdrawing from a business has justified. I believe, sir, that I am an honest fellow; but to be frank, I have had several trades. I have been a travelling singer; a circus rider, vaulting like Leotard, and dancing on the rope like Blondin; then I became professor of gymnastics, in order to render my talents more useful; and in the last place, I was a sergeant fireman at Paris. I have among my papers notes of remarkable fires. But five years have passed since I left France, and wishing to have a taste of family life, I have been a valet in England. Now, finding myself out of a situation, and having learned that Monsieur Phileas Fogg was the most exact and the most settled gentleman in the United Kingdom, I have presented myself to monsieur with the hope of living tranquilly with him, and of forgetting even the name of Passepartout.”

“Passepartout suits me,” replied the gentleman. “You are recommended to me. I have good reports concerning you. You know my conditions?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, what time have you?”

“Twenty-two minutes after eleven,” replied Passepartout, drawing from the depths of his pocket an enormous silver watch.

“You are slow,” said Mr Fogg.

“Pardon me, monsieur, but it is impossible.”

“You are four minutes too slow. It does not matter. It suffices to state the difference. Then, from this moment—twenty-nine minutes after eleven o’clock a.m., this Wednesday, October 2, 1872, you are in my service.”

That said, Phileas Fogg rose, took his hat in his left hand, placed it upon his head with an automatic movement, and disappeared without another word.

Passepartout heard the street door close once; it was his new master going out; then a second time; it was his predecessor, James Forster, departing in his turn. Passepartout remained alone in the house in Saville Row.

In which Passepartout is Convinced that he has Found his ideal

“Upon my word,” said Passepartout to himself, “I have known at Madame Tussaud’s good people as lively as my new master!”

It is proper to say here that Madame Tussaud’s “good people” are wax figures, much visited in London, and who, indeed, are only wanting in speech.

During the few minutes that he had interviewed Phileas Fogg, Passepartout had examined his future master, rapidly but carefully. He was a man that might be forty years old, of fine handsome face, of tall figure, which a slight corpulence did not disparage, his hair and whiskers light, his forehead compact, without appearance of wrinkles at the temples, his face rather pale than flushed, his teeth magnificent. He appeared to possess in the highest degree what physiognomists call “repose in action,” a quality common to those who do more work than talking. Calm, phlegmatic, with a clear eye and immovable eyelid, he was the finished type of those cool-blooded Englishmen so frequently met in the United Kingdom, and whose somewhat academic posture Angelica Kauffman has marvellously reproduced under her pencil. Seen in the various acts of his existence, this gentleman gave the idea of a well-balanced being in all his parts, evenly hung, as perfect as a Leroy or Earnshaw chronometer. Indeed Phileas Fogg was exactness personified, which was seen clearly from “the expression of his feet and his hands,” for with man, as well as with the animals, the limbs themselves are organs expressive of the passions.

Phileas Fogg was one of those mathematically exact people, who, never hurried and always ready, are economical of their steps and their motions. He never made one stride too many, always going by the shortest route. He did not give an idle look. He did not allow himself a superfluous gesture. He had never been seen moved or troubled. He was a man of the least possible haste, but he always arrived in time. However, it will be understood that he lived alone, and, so to speak, outside of every social relation. He knew that in life one must take his share of friction, and as frictions retard, he never rubbed against anyone.

As for Jean, called Passepartout, a true Parisian of Paris, he had sought vainly for a master to whom he could attach himself, in the five years that he lived in England and served as a valet in London. Passepartout was not one of those Frontins or Mascarilles, who, with high shoulders, nose high in air, a look of assurance, and staring eye, are only impudent dunces. No, Passepartout was a good fellow, of amiable physiognomy, his lips a little prominent, always ready to taste or caress, a mild and serviceable being, with one of those good round heads that we like to see on the shoulders of a friend. His eyes were blue, his complexion rosy, his face fat enough for him to see his cheek-bones, his chest broad, his form full, his muscles vigorous, and he possessed a herculean strength which his youthful exercise had splendidly developed. His brown hair was somewhat tumbled. If the ancient sculptors knew eighteen ways of arranging Minerva’s hair, Passepartout knew of but one for fixing his own: three strokes of a large tooth-comb, and it was dressed.

The most meagre stock of prudence would not permit of saying that the expansive character of this young man would agree with that of Phileas Fogg. Would Passepartout be in all respects exactly the servant that his master needed? That would only be seen by using him. After having had, as we have seen, quite a wandering youth, he longed for repose. Having heard the exactness and proverbial coolness of the English gentlemen praised, he came to seek his fortune in England. But until the present, Fate had treated him badly. He had not been able to take root anywhere. He had served in ten different houses. In every one the people were capricious and irregular, running after adventures or about the country—which no longer suited Passepartout. His last master, young Lord Longsferry, Member of Parliament, after having passed his nights in the Haymarket oyster rooms, returned home too frequently on the shoulders of policemen. Passepartout wishing, above all things, to be able to respect his master, ventured some mild remarks, which were badly received, and he left. In the meantime, he learned that Phileas Fogg, Esq., was hunting for a servant. He made some inquiry about this gentleman. A person whose existence was so regular, who never slept in a strange bed, who did not travel, who was never absent, not even for a day, could not but suit him. He presented himself, and was accepted under the circumstances that we already know.

At half-past eleven, Passepartout found himself alone in the Saville Row mansion. He immediately commenced its inspection, going over it from cellar to garret. This clean, well-ordered, austere, Puritan house, well organised for servants, pleased him. It produced the effect upon him of a fine snail-shell, but one lighted and heated by gas, for carburetted hydrogen answered both purposes here. Passepartout found without difficulty, in the second story, the room designed for him. It suited him. Electric bells and speaking-tubes put it in communication with the lower stories. On the mantel an electric clock corresponded with the one in Phileas Fogg’s bed-chamber, both beating the same second at the same instant. “That suits me, that suits me!” said Passepartout.