Lunchtime read: Around the World in Eighty Days

Things seem to have all gone wrong and in the end it is not because of a lack of trying but because of the obsession that Fix has with arresting Phileas Fogg. You hope that there has been some terrible mistake with the clocks and there is still time for him to win the wager but you sense that all is lost.

Highlights between chapters XXXI - XXXIV

After rescuing Passepartout the group take a sledge with sails and fly through the snow and ice to catch up with the main line and then take a train to Chicago. Then they switch to take a train to New York but when they arrive they have missed the steamer to Liverpool by three quarters of an hour. Fogg tries to get a boat but the captain on the only one that will go fast grudgingly accepts his passage to Bordeaux so Fogg takes over the boat and only releases the captain when they have run out of coal;. He buys the boat and burns the deck and pulls into port to catch a train to Liverpool.

Once on British soil Fix turn round and arrests him and puts him in a cell. The train to London leaves and Fogg is still in the cell. Fix bursts into tell him the real robber has been found and receives a punch in the face from Fogg for his efforts and then heads off but time has run out and he heads home rather than going to the Reform Club to collect his winnings.

Final chunk tomorrow…