Around the World in Eighty Days
Literature
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The car which he occupied was a sort of long omnibus on eight wheels, and with no compartments in the interior.
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It was supplied with two rows of seats, perpendicular to the direction of the train on either side of an aisle which conducted to the front and rear platforms.
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These platforms were found throughout the train, and the passengers were able to pass from one end of the train to the other.
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It was supplied with saloon cars, balcony cars, restaurants, and smoking-cars; theatre cars alone were wanting, and they will have these some day.
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Book and news dealers, sellers of edibles, drinkables, and cigars, who seemed to have plenty of customers, were continually circulating in the aisles.
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The train left Oakland station at six o'clock.
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It was already night, cold and cheerless, the heavens being overcast with clouds which seemed to threaten snow.
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Passepartout had for an instant feared that he was on the wrong boat; but, though he was really on the Carnatic, his master was not there.
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He fell thunderstruck on a seat.
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He saw it all now.
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It was his fault, then, that Mr. Fogg and Aouda had missed the steamer.
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A locomotive, moving on the rails laid down the evening before, brought the rails to be laid on the morrow, and advanced upon them as fast as they were put in position.
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"Good!" thought he. "I will imagine I am at the Carnival!" His first care, after being thus "Japanesed," was to enter a tea-house of modest appearance, and, upon half a bird and a little rice, to breakfast like a man for whom dinner was as yet a problem to be solved.
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"Now," thought he, when he had eaten heartily, "I mustn't lose my head. I can't sell this costume again for one still more Japanese.
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I must consider how to leave this country of the Sun, of which I shall not retain the most delightful of memories, as quickly as possible."
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It occurred to him to visit the steamers which were about to leave for America.
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He would offer himself as a cook or servant, in payment of his passage and meals.
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Once at San Francisco, he would find some means of going on.
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The difficulty was, how to traverse the four thousand seven hundred miles of the Pacific which lay between Japan and the New World.
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Passepartout was not the man to let an idea go begging, and directed his steps towards the docks.
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What need would they have of a cook or servant on an American steamer, and what confidence would they put in him, dressed as he was?
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What references could he give? As he was reflecting in this wise, his eyes fell upon an immense placard which a sort of clown was carrying through the streets.
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"The United States!" said Passepartout; "that's just what I want!"
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He followed the clown, and soon found himself once more in the Japanese quarter.
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A quarter of an hour later he stopped before a large cabin, adorned with several clusters of streamers, the exterior walls of which were designed to represent, in violent colours and without perspective, a company of jugglers.
