CHAPTER VI.
IN WHICH FIX, THE DETECTIVE, BETRAYS A VERY NATURAL IMPATIENCE The circumstances under which this telegraphic dispatch about Phileas Fogg was sent were as follows: The steamer Mongolia, belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company, built of iron, of two thousand eight hundred tons burden, and five hundred horse-power, was due at eleven o'clock a.m.on Wednesday, the 9th of October, at Suez.

The Mongolia plied regularly between Brindisi and Bombay via the Suez Canal, and was one of the fastest steamers belonging to the company, always making more than ten knots an hour between Brindisi and Suez, and nine and a half between Suez and Bombay.
Two men were promenading up and down the wharves, among the crowd of natives and strangers who were sojourning at this once straggling village--now, thanks to the enterprise of M.Lesseps, a fast-growing town.

One was the British consul at Suez, who, despite the prophecies of the English Government, and the unfavourable predictions of Stephenson, was in the habit of seeing, from his office window, English ships daily passing to and fro on the great canal, by which the old roundabout route from England to India by the Cape of Good Hope was abridged by at least a half.

The other was a small, slight-built personage, with a nervous, intelligent face, and bright eyes peering out from under eyebrows which he was incessantly twitching.

He was just now manifesting unmistakable signs of impatience, nervously pacing up and down, and unable to stand still for a moment.