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
Such was the road to be traveled in seven days. It would enable
Phileas Fogg--at least, so he hoped--to take the Atlantic
steamer at New York on the 11th for Liverpool.
The car which he occupied was a sort of long omnibus on eight
wheels, with no compartments in the interior. It was supplied
with two rows of seats, perpendicular to the direction of the
train on either side of an aisle which led to the front and rear
platforms. These platforms were found throughout the train, and
the passengers were able to pass from one end of the train to the
other. It was supplied with saloon cars, balcony cars,
restaurants and smoking-cars. Theatre cars alone were missing,
and they will have these some day.
Book and news dealers, sellers of edibles, beverages and cigars,
who seemed to have plenty of customers, were continually
circulating in the aisles.
The train left Oakland station at six o'clock. It was already
night, cold and cheerless, the heavens being overcast with clouds
which seemed to threaten snow. The train did not proceed rapidly.
Counting the stops, it did not run more than twenty miles an
hour, which was a sufficient speed, however, to enable it to
reach Omaha within its designated time.
There was but little conversation in the car, and soon many of
the passengers were asleep. Passepartout found himself beside the
detective, but he did not talk to him. After recent events, their
relations with each other had grown somewhat cold. There could no
longer be mutual sympathy or intimacy between them. Fix's manner
had not changed; but Passepartout was very reserved, and ready to
strangle his former friend on the slightest provocation.
Snow began to fall an hour after they started, a fine snow,
however, which happily did not deter the train. Nothing could be
seen from the windows but a vast, white sheet, against which the
smoke of the locomotive had a greyish aspect.
At eight o'clock a steward entered the car and announced that
bedtime had arrived. In a few minutes the car was transformed
into a dormitory. The backs of the seats were thrown back,
bedsteads carefully packed were rolled out by an ingenious
system, berths were suddenly improvised, and each traveler soon
had at his disposition a comfortable bed, protected from curious
eyes by thick curtains. The sheets were clean and the pillows
soft. It only remained to go to bed and sleep--which everybody
did--while the train sped on across the State of California.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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