ock Exchange, nor at the Bank of England, nor
at any of the great City houses. No vessel with a cargo consigned to
Phileas Fogg ever entered the port of London. He held no Government
appointment. He had never been entered at any of the Inns of Court. He
had never pleaded at the Chancery Bar, the Queen's Bench, the
Exchequer, or the Ecclesiastical Courts. He was not a merchant, a
manufacturer, a farmer, nor a man of business of any kind. He was not
in the habit of frequenting the Royal Institution or any other of the
learned societies of the metropolis. He was simply a member of the
"Reform," and that was all!

If anyone ever inquired how it was that he had become a member of the
club, the questioner was informed that he had been put up by the
Barings, with whom he kept his account, which always showed a good
balance, and from which his cheques were regularly and promptly
honoured.

Was Phileas Fogg a rich man? Unquestionably. But in what manner he had
made his money even the best-informed gossips could not tell, and Mr.
Fogg was the very last person from whom one would seek to obtain
information on the subject. He was never prodigal in expenditure, but
never stingy; and whenever his contribution towards some good or
useful object was required he gave cheerfully, and in many cases
anonymously.

In short, he was one of the most uncommunicative of men. He talked
little, and his habitual taciturnity added to the mystery surrounding
him. Nevertheless, his life was simple and open enough, but he
regulated all his actions with a mathematical exactness which, to the
imagination of the quidnuncs, was in itself suspicious.

Had he ever travelled? It was very probable, for no one was better
informed in the science of geography. There was apparently no
out-of-the-way place concerning which he had not some exclusive
information. Occasionally, in a few sentences, he would clear away the
thousand-and-one rumours which circulated in the club concerning some
lost or some nearly-forgotten traveller; he would point out the true
probabilities; and it really appeared as if he were gifted with second
sight, so correctly were his anticipations justified by succeeding
events. He was a man who must have been everywhere--in spirit at
least.

One thing at any rate was certain, viz. that he had not been absent
from London for many a year. Those with whom he was on a more intimate
footing used to declare that no one had ever seen him anywher