t at five minutes after eight that
evening--about twenty-five hours after our travellers' arrival in
London--Passe-partout had been requested to arrange about a certain
marriage with the Rev. Samuel Wilson. Passe-partout had gone on his
mission rejoicing, but the clergyman was not at home. He naturally
waited, but he was kept at least twenty minutes.

It was 8.35 when he left the clergyman's house, but what a state he
was in! His hair was disordered, he ran home without his hat,
overturning the passers-by as he went rushing along the pathway.

In three minutes he was back in Saville Row, and he rushed
breathlessly into Mr. Fogg's room.

He was unable to speak.

"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Fogg.

"Oh, sir--the marriage--impossible."

"Impossible?"

"Impossible for to-morrow."

"Why so?"

"Because to-morrow is--Sunday."

"It is Monday," said Mr. Fogg.

"No, to-day is Saturday."

"Saturday? impossible."

"It is, it is!" exclaimed Passe-partout. "You have made a mistake of
one day. We arrived twenty-four hours before our time, but we have
only ten minutes left now."

As he spoke Passe-partout fairly dragged his master out of his chair.

Phileas Fogg, thus seized, had no choice. He rushed downstairs, jumped
into a cab, promised the driver a hundred pounds, ran over two dogs,
came into collision with five cabs, and reached the Reform Club at
8.45.

So Phileas Fogg had accomplished the journey round the world in eighty
days, and had won his bet of twenty thousand pounds.

Now how was it that such a methodical man could have made a mistake of
a day? How could he imagine that he had got back on Saturday the 21st
when it was really Friday the 20th, seventy-nine days after his
departure?

The reason is very simple.

Phileas Fogg had unconsciously gained a day, simply because he
journeyed always eastward, whereas, had he journeyed westward, he
would have lost a day.

In fact, travelling towards the east, he had gone towards the south,
and consequently the days got shorter as many times four minutes as he
crossed degrees in that direction. There are three hundred and sixty
degrees, and these multiplied by four minutes give exactly twenty-four
hours; that is the day Fogg gained. In other words, while Phileas
Fogg, going east, saw the sun pass the meridian eighty times, his
friends in London only saw it seventy-nine times, and that is why on
that day, which was Saturday, and not Sunday, as Mr. Fogg tho