Around the World in Eighty Days. Junior Deluxe EditionVerne, Jules
General
Around the World in Eighty Days. Junior Deluxe Edition
Verne, Jules
Adventure stories; Voyages around the world -- Fiction
Passepartout heard the street door shut once. It was his new
master going out. He heard it shut again. It was his predecessor,
James Forster, departing in his turn. Passepartout remained alone
in the house in Saville Row.
Chapter 2
In Which Passepartout Is Convinced That He Has
at Last Found His Ideal
"Faith," muttered Passepartout, somewhat flurried, "I've seen
people at Madame Tussaud's as lively as my new master!"
Madame Tussaud's "people," let it be said, are of wax, and are
much visited in London. Speech is all that is wanting to make
them human.
During his brief interview with Mr. Fogg, Passepartout had been
carefully observing him. He appeared to be a man about forty
years of age, with fine, handsome features, and a tall,
well-shaped figure. His hair and whiskers were light, his
forehead compact and unwrinkled, his face rather pale, his teeth
magnificent. His countenance possessed in the highest degree what
physiognomists call "repose in action," a quality of those who
act rather than talk. Calm and phlegmatic, with a clear eye, Mr.
Fogg seemed a perfect type of that English composure which
Angelica Kauffmann has so skillfully represented on canvas. Seen
in the various phases of his daily life, he gave the idea of
being perfectly well-balanced, as exactly regulated as a Leroy
chronometer. Phileas Fogg was, indeed, exactitude personified,
and this was betrayed even in the expression of his very hands and
feet; for in men, as well as in animals, the limbs themselves are
expressive of the passions.
He was so exact that he was never in a hurry, was always ready,
and was economical alike of his steps and his motions. He never
took one step too many, and always went to his destination by the
shortest cut. He made no superfluous gestures, and was never seen
to be moved or agitated. He was the most deliberate person in the
world, yet always reached his destination at the exact moment.
He lived alone, and, so to speak, outside of every social
relation; and as he knew that in this world account must be taken
of friction, and that friction retards, he never rubbed against
anybody.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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