e days."

"Why, what are you saying? Those gentlemen are not satisfied with
following my master and suspecting his honour, but they must try to put
obstacles in his way! I blush for them!"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that it is a piece of shameful trickery. They might as well
waylay Mr. Fogg and put his money in their pockets!"

"That's just what we count on doing."

"It's a conspiracy, then," cried Passepartout, who became more and more
excited as the liquor mounted in his head, for he drank without
perceiving it. "A real conspiracy! And gentlemen, too. Bah!"

Fix began to be puzzled.

"Members of the Reform Club!" continued Passepartout. "You must know,
Monsieur Fix, that my master is an honest man, and that, when he makes
a wager, he tries to win it fairly!"

"But who do you think I am?" asked Fix, looking at him intently.

"Parbleu! An agent of the members of the Reform Club, sent out here to
interrupt my master's journey. But, though I found you out some time
ago, I've taken good care to say nothing about it to Mr. Fogg."

"He knows nothing, then?"

"Nothing," replied Passepartout, again emptying his glass.

The detective passed his hand across his forehead, hesitating before he
spoke again. What should he do? Passepartout's mistake seemed
sincere, but it made his design more difficult. It was evident that
the servant was not the master's accomplice, as Fix had been inclined
to suspect.

"Well," said the detective to himself, "as he is not an accomplice, he
will help me."

He had no time to lose: Fogg must be detained at Hong Kong, so he
resolved to make a clean breast of it.

"Listen to me," said Fix abruptly. "I am not, as you think, an agent
of the members of the Reform Club--"

"Bah!" retorted Passepartout, with an air of raillery.

"I am a police detective, sent out here by the London office."

"You, a detective?"

"I will prove it. Here is my commission."

Passepartout was speechless with astonishment when Fix displayed this
document, the genuineness of which could not be doubted.

"Mr. Fogg's wager," resumed Fix, "is only a pretext, of which you and
the gentlemen of the Reform are dupes. He had a motive for securing
your innocent complicity."

"But why?"

"Listen. On the 28th of last September a robbery of fifty-five
thousand pounds was committed at the Bank of England by a person whose
description was fortunately secured. Here is his description; it
answers e