Philip Jose Farmer by The Other Log of Phileas Fogg Page B

after all, he may have just been testing out the nervous little Capellean.
    Fix informed the valet that, if the passport was to be stamped, its owner must appear in person with it. Passepartout returned to the ship. Fix at once hastened to the consul. He told him that he believed that the thief was on the  Mongolia . The consul must detain Fogg when he came to have his passport visaed. Fix needed time to get a warrant for his arrest from London via telegram.
    This the consul refused to do. Unless a warrant was on hand, the consul must permit Fogg to go on his way.
    The master and servant shortly thereafter appeared, and Fix helplessly observed the stamping of the passport. He decided to follow the two. Fogg had returned to the cabin to eat his breakfast there, but Passepartout was around the wharf. He readily answered Fix’s questions. He told him that since they had left in such a hurry, he must buy some shoes and shirts while in Suez. Fix offered to take him to a shop. Passepartout accepted with thanks. On the way, the Frenchman consulted his watch to make sure he had enough time to shop and then get back to the steamer.
    “You have plenty of time,” Fix said. “It is only twelve o’clock.”
    Passepartout was astounded. His watch indicated only eight minutes to ten.
    “Your watch is slow,” Fix said.
    Passepartout exclaimed with disbelief. His watch, he said, did not vary five minutes in a year. It was an heirloom, it had originally belonged to his great-grandfather. And it was true that he was proud of the chronometer as a perfect timepiece. But he also dangled it before Fix to get a reaction which had nothing to do with watches per se. It was necessary to know if the Capellean, if he were one, suspected that a distorter was concealed therein. Fix, however, seemed interested only in Passepartout’s lack of knowledge about time zones. He informed him that his watch was still keeping London time. This was two hours behind Suez time. He should regulate his watch at high noon whenever he passed into a different zone.
    Passepartout acted as if this suggestion bordered on sacrilege.
    “I regulate my watch? Never!”
    Fix patiently, if in a nervous manner, said, “Then it won’t agree with the sun.”
    Passepartout’s reply was typically Gallic.
    “So much the worse for the sun. The sun will be wrong!”
    Fix was silenced for a few moments by this vehemence and disregard for natural laws. When he recovered, he said, “You left London suddenly?”
    “I believe so! Last Friday at eight o’clock in the evening, Mr. Fogg came home from his club. Three-quarters of an hour later, we were off!”
    “But where is your master going?”
    “Always straight ahead. He’s going around the world!”
    Fix was startled by this. Or, at least, he seemed to be. Perhaps his superiors had not notified him as yet of the wager.
    “Around the world?”
    Passepartout then told Fix that the trip must take no more than eighty days. As for him, he did not believe the reason given for this unexpected departure from the “snail’s shell.” There must be another reason for this madness.
    This may have convinced Fix that the Frenchman was only an innocent fellow-traveler. If so, he could learn much by being friendly with this fellow.
    Whatever Passepartout’s role, he was certainly telling the truth about Fogg’s intention of going eastward.
    “Bombay, is it far from here?” Passepartout said.
    “Rather far. It’s ten days by sea.”
    “And in what country is Bombay?”
    “India.”
    “In Asia?”
    This ignorance may be excused in a peasant or an illiterate worker in the factory. But would a man whose name means “Goes Everywhere,” and who has been everywhere, be so lacking in such elementary geographical knowledge? Hardly. Passepartout was merely continuing to act the role allotted to him. To reinforce this image, he told Fix of the gaslight he had forgotten to turn off. His master was charging him for this, justly, it must