`Well, Mr Fogg,' said he, `it shall be so: I will wager the four thousand on it.'

`Calm yourself, my dear Stuart,' said Fallentin. `It's only a joke.'

`When I say I'll wager,' returned Stuart, `I mean it.'

`All right,' said Mr Fogg; and turning to the others he continued: `I have a deposit of twenty thousand at Baring's which I will willingly risk upon it.'

`Twenty thousand pounds!' cried Sullivan. `Twenty thousand pounds, which you would lose by a single accidental delay!'

`The unforeseen does not exist,' quietly replied Phileas Fogg.

`But, Mr Fogg, eighty days are only the estimate of the least possible time in which the journey can be made.'

`A well - used minimum suffices for everything.'

`But, in order not to exceed it, you must jump mathematically from the trains upon the steamers, and from the steamers upon the trains again.'

`I will jump-mathematically.'

`You are joking.'

`A true Englishman doesn't joke when he is talking about so serious a thing as a wager,' replied Phileas Fogg, solemnly. `I will bet twenty thousand pounds against anyone who wishes, that I will make the tour of the world in eighty days or less; in nineteen hundred and twenty hours, or a hundred and fifteen thousand two hundred minutes. Do you accept?'

`We accept,' replied Messrs Stuart, Fallentin, Sullivan, Flanagan, and Ralph, after consulting each other.

`Good,' said Mr Fogg. `The train leaves for Dover at a quarter before nine. I will take it.'

`This very evening?' asked Stuart.

`This very evening,' returned Phileas Fogg. He took out and consulted a pocket almanac, and added, `As to-day is Wednesday, the second of October, I shall be due in London, in this very room of the Reform Club, on Saturday, the twenty-first of December, at a quarter before nine p.m.; or else the twenty thousand pounds, now deposited in my name at Baring's, will belong to you, in fact and in right, gentlemen. Here is a cheque for the amount.'

A memorandum of the wager was at once drawn up and signed by the six parties, during which Phileas Fogg preserved a stoical composure. He certainly did not bet to win, and had only staked the twenty thousand pounds, half of his fortune, because he foresaw that he might have to expend the other half to carry out this difficult, not to say unattainable, project. As for his antagonists, they seemed much agitated; not so much by the value of their stake, as because they had some scruples about betting under conditions so difficult to their friend.

The clock struck seven, and the party offered to suspend the game so that Mr Fogg might make his preparations for departure.

`I am quite ready now,' was his tranquil response.

`Diamonds are trumps: be so good as to play, gentlemen.'