[Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne]@TWC D-Link book
Around the World in 80 Days

CHAPTER XI
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He made India his home, only paying brief visits to England at rare intervals; and was almost as familiar as a native with the customs, history, and character of India and its people.

But Phileas Fogg, who was not travelling, but only describing a circumference, took no pains to inquire into these subjects; he was a solid body, traversing an orbit around the terrestrial globe, according to the laws of rational mechanics.

He was at this moment calculating in his mind the number of hours spent since his departure from London, and, had it been in his nature to make a useless demonstration, would have rubbed his hands for satisfaction.
Sir Francis Cromarty had observed the oddity of his travelling companion--although the only opportunity he had for studying him had been while he was dealing the cards, and between two rubbers--and questioned himself whether a human heart really beat beneath this cold exterior, and whether Phileas Fogg had any sense of the beauties of nature.

The brigadier-general was free to mentally confess that, of all the eccentric persons he had ever met, none was comparable to this product of the exact sciences.
Phileas Fogg had not concealed from Sir Francis his design of going round the world, nor the circumstances under which he set out; and the general only saw in the wager a useless eccentricity and a lack of sound common sense.

In the way this strange gentleman was going on, he would leave the world without having done any good to himself or anybody else.
An hour after leaving Bombay the train had passed the viaducts and the Island of Salcette, and had got into the open country.


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