FOUR Showing that
ALTHOUGH PHILEAS FOGG DOES NOT DRIVE A MOTORCAR, HE DOES DRIVE A HARD BARGAIN
Of the twenty thousand pounds he had won as a result of his famous wager, Phileas Fogg had put five thousand into a trust fund for his son, where it had sat for nearly two decades, collecting three percent interest per annum. Harry himself couldn’t draw upon the fund until the age of twenty-one. But perhaps he could persuade his father to advance him a small portion of it.
Harry would have been wise to wait until five-forty, when Phileas Fogg’s customary whist-playing time was over. But Harry was not known for his wisdom; he headed at once for the card room.
His father was seated at a table with three other men, all of whom glanced up and greeted Harry. Phileas Fogg seemed oblivious of his presence. The man’s attention was entirely on the game. “Sir?” said Harry softly. There was no response. “Father? I need to talk to you.”
“I’m listening,” said his father, without looking up from his cards. “Six diamonds.”
“It’s . . . it’s a private matter.”
“Is it urgent?”
“Yes, sir.” Well, that was true, in a sense. After all, he had only a week in which to do everything.
“Will you excuse me, gentlemen?” Fogg led his son to the private drawing room that adjoined the card room. “Is something wrong?”
“Not exactly. You see ...” Whenever Harry was in a tight spot, he took the same approach he did in cricket: No use shilly-shallying, just deliver the ball and take what comes. “Well, sir, after you left, I bet Hardiman and his friends that I could drive the Flash around the world.”
“The motorcar?”
“Yes, sir.”
Phileas Fogg showed no surprise or alarm, in fact no emotion in particular. “I see. Is there money involved?”
“Yes, sir. Six thousand pounds.”
“That’s a considerable sum.”
“You once wagered far more than that,” Harry reminded him, “and from what I’ve heard, you didn’t blink an eye.”
“That’s true. But there was a major difference between my situation and yours. Had I lost—and, you will recall, I came very near to it—I had the funds to make good on my wager.”
“It would have left you practically penniless.”
“Nonetheless, I could have done it. If you lose, you can’t possibly pay, which means I shall be responsible for your debt.”
Harry winced slightly; he hadn’t thought of that. “The money from my trust fund would cover it, would it not?”
For the first time, a touch of irritation found its way into Phileas Fogg’s voice. “That money was put aside to help you set yourself up in life, not to pay off an ill-considered bet.”
“I know that,” said Harry, rather meekly. Then he took a deep breath and soldiered on. “In any case, I have no intention of losing. The Flash is fast and she’s reliable. My main concern is how to finance the trip.”
“You receive a rather generous allowance—two pounds a week, if I am not mistaken. I would have thought you could manage to save some of it.”
“No, sir. I’ve put it into building the Flash. I was hoping you might see your way clear to advance me a few hundred pounds.”
“From the trust fund.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The same trust fund with which I am expected to pay your debt.”
“Only if I lose.”
Hands clasped behind his back, Phileas Fogg gazed down at the horse-drawn traffic on Pall Mall. At last he said, “Have you thought at all about your future?”
Harry was thrown off balance by this sudden change of topic. “My—my future, sir?”
“What you’ll make of yourself. Even if you don’t lose it on this wager of yours, five thousand pounds won’t last forever. You’ll need to settle on a profession of some sort.”
“Profession?” said Harry. “To be honest, I hadn’t thought about it.” He had grown up with the vague notion that being a gentleman was a profession in itself—one that, admittedly, he was not very good at. “You have no profession, sir,” Harry pointed out, “or none that I’m aware of.”
“Not presently, no. But when I was a young man, I did actually work for a living.”
“You did?”
Phileas Fogg turned to him with a thin, almost imperceptible smile. “How did you imagine I amassed my wealth, such as it is?”
“I—I was not sure. I assumed that you inherited it, I suppose. What sort of work were you engaged in, then?”
“That is not the issue here. The question was, what do you intend to make of yourself? You might, of course, do as so many other well-born young men have done, and go on living off the family fortune for as long as it lasts. But I expect—or at least I hope—that your sense of pride would not let you be content with that.”
“No,” said Harry. “Of course not.”
“I had thought at one point that you might go into law, or perhaps medicine,” said Phileas Fogg. He might have added, That was before you flunked out of Eton, but he did not. “I don’t suppose that is likely to happen.”
“No, sir. Offhand, I can think of no profession that truly appeals to me.”
Phileas Fogg stared out the window again. After a time, he said, “With whom did you make this wager of yours?”
“With Mr. Hardiman, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Flanagan. Each of them wagered two thousand pounds.”
“You are aware, I suppose, that the latter two were among the very men who bet that I could not circle the world in eighty days.”
“No! I thought your wager was with Andrew Stuart!”
“He was the one to start it rolling, but four others climbed aboard, including Sullivan and Flanagan. Their fortunes were large enough to recover from the loss; Stuart’s was not. Stuart has never forgiven me, as you know.”
Harry nodded. “He harangued me yet again, outside the Club.”
“Yes, well, I believe the others still nurse a grudge as well. I suspect that they seized upon this as an opportunity to take their revenge.”
“Then they’ll be extremely disappointed, for I intend to win.”
“You seem very certain.”
“As certain as you were when you made your wager.”
Phileas Fogg fixed that unnerving, inscrutable gaze upon Harry. “Very well,” he said, finally. “Here is what I propose. I shall advance you the money you require for the trip, and, should you lose, I shall pay your debt.” Harry’s face broke into a relieved grin, which faded only a little when his father added, “On one condition. You must agree that, if you do lose, you will abandon all this tinkering and this squandering of money, and take up some profession appropriate for a gentleman—not grudgingly, not halfheartedly, but cheerfully and diligently.”
Harry had the unfortunate habit of hearing only what he cared to hear and disregarding the rest. His father had said that he would finance the trip; that was the important part. Anything else could be dealt with later. “You have my word, Father.” They sealed the bargain, as gentlemen do, with a firm handshake. “I’d better go and break the news to Johnny.”
“You’ll want to hire an experienced driver, of course. Perhaps I can help locate one.”
“No, no,” said Harry hastily. “That’s all taken care of.” The experienced driver he had in mind was himself, but his father probably did not need to know that.