How was it that a man so exact and fastidious could have made this error of a day? How came he to think that he had arrived in London on Saturday, the twenty-first day of December, when it was really Friday, the twentieth, the seventy-ninth day only from his departure? The cause of the error is very simple. Phileas Fogg had, without suspecting it, gained one day on his journey, and this merely because he had travelled constantly _eastward;_ he would, on the contrary, have lost a day had he gone in the opposite direction, that is, _westward_. In journeying eastward he had gone towards the sun, and the days therefore diminished for him as many times four minutes as he crossed degrees in this direction. There are three hundred and sixty degrees on the circumference of the earth; and these three hundred and sixty degrees, multiplied by four minutes, gives precisely twenty-four hours—that is, the day unconsciously gained. In other words, while Phileas Fogg, going eastward, saw the sun pass the meridian _eighty_ times, his friends in London only saw it pass the meridian _seventy-nine_ times. This is why they awaited him at the Reform Club on Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg thought. And Passepartout’s famous family watch, which had always kept London time, would have betrayed this fact, if it had marked the days as well as the hours and the 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, however, from Passepartout’s share the cost of the gas which had burned in his room for nineteen hundred and twenty hours, for the sake of regularity. 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 is for me to ask that question. You were ruined, but now you are rich again.” “Pardon me, madam; my fortune belongs to you. If you had not suggested our marriage, my servant would not have gone to the Reverend Samuel Wilson’s, I should not have been apprised of my error, and—” “Dear Mr. Fogg!” said the young woman. “Dear Aouda!” replied Phileas Fogg. It need not 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 is 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.”