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

with its mosaic flooring, or in the circular gallery with its dome
supported by twenty red porphyry Ionic columns, and illumined by blue
painted windows. When he breakfasted or dined all the resources of the club
-- its kitchens and pantries, its buttery and dairy -- aided to crowd his
table with their
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most succulent stores; he was served by the gravest waiters, in dress
coats, and shoes with swan-skin soles, who proffered the viands in special
porcelain, and on the finest linen; club decanters, of a lost mould,
contained his sherry, his port, and his cinnamon-spiced claret; while his
beverages were refreshingly cooled with ice, brought at great cost from the
American lakes.

If to live in this style is to be eccentric, it must be confessed that
there is something good in eccentricity.

The mansion in Saville Row, though not sumptuous, was exceedingly
comfortable. The habits of its occupant were such as to demand but little
from the sole domestic, but Phileas Fogg required him to be almost
superhumanly prompt and regular. On this very 2nd of October he had
dismissed James Forster, because that luckless youth had brought him
shaving-water at eighty-four degrees Fahrenheit instead of eighty-six; and
he was awaiting his successor, who was due at the house between eleven and
half-past.

Phileas Fogg was seated squarely in his armchair, his feet close
together like those of a grenadier on parade, his hands resting on his
knees, his body straight, his head erect; he was steadily watching a
complicated clock which indicated the hours, the minutes, the seconds, the
days, the months, and the years. At exactly half-past eleven
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Mr. Fogg would, according to his daily habit, quit Saville Row, and repair
to the Reform.

A rap at this moment sounded on the door of the cosy apartment where
Phileas Fogg was seated, and James Forster, the dismissed servant,
appeared.

"The new servant," said he.

A young man of thirty advanced and bowed.

"You are a Frenchman, I believe," asked Phileas Fogg, "and your name
is John?"