"Verne, Jules - Around the World in 80 Days" - читать интересную книгу автора (Verne Jules)

Around the World in Eighty Days
Verne, Jules, 1828-1905

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Chapter 1

IN WHICH PHILEAS FOGG AND PASSEPARTOUT ACCEPT EACH OTHER, THE ONE AS
MASTER, THE OTHER AS MAN

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Page 1



Mr. Phileas Fogg lived, in 1872, at No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington
Gardens, the house in which Sheridan died in 1814. He was one of the most
noticeable members of the Reform Club, though he seemed always to avoid
attracting attention; an enigmatical personage, about whom little was
known, except that he was a polished man of the world. People said that he
resembled Byron -- at least that his head was Byronic; but he was a
bearded, tranquil Byron, who might live on a thousand years without growing
old.

Certainly an Englishman, it was more doubtful whether
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Phileas Fogg was a Londoner. He was never seen on 'Change, nor at the Bank,
nor in the counting-rooms of the "City"; no ships ever came into London
docks of which he was the owner; he had no public employment; he had never
been entered at any of the Inns of Court, either at the Temple, or
Lincoln's Inn, or Gray's Inn; nor had his voice ever resounded in the Court
of Chancery, or in the Exchequer, or the Queen's Bench, or the
Ecclesiastical Courts. He certainly was not a manufacturer; nor was he a
merchant or a gentleman farmer. His name was strange to the scientific and
learned societies, and he never was known to take part in the sage
deliberations of the Royal Institution or the London Institution, the
Artisan's Association, or the Institution of Arts and Sciences. He
belonged, in fact, to none of the numerous societies which swarm in the
English capital, from the Harmonic to that of the Entomologists, founded
mainly for the purpose of abolishing pernicious insects.

Phileas Fogg was a member of the Reform, and that was all.

The way in which he got admission to this exclusive club was simple
enough.

He was recommended by the Barings, with whom he had an open credit.