Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Around the World in Eighty Days - CHAPTER 15


Just as Fogg, Passepartout and Aouda are leaving the Calcutta station a policeman approaches them and asks Fogg and Passepartout to accompany him. Aouda too is given permission to accompany Fogg and Passepartout. They are taken in a ‘palki gari’ to an unpretentious looking house and told that they are to present themselves in front of a judge. When they are presented in court, the plaintiffs too are brought in and they turn out to be priests. Fogg assumes that these are the priests, who tried to sacrifice Aouda in the pagoda of Pillagi but he is mistaken. These are actually the priests from the pagoda of Bombay who got into a scuffle with Passepartout because he entered the holy place with his shoes on. It is explained by the author that Detective Fix had taken upon himself to advise the priests of Malabar Hill after fully grasping all the advantage he could derive from the unfortunate mistake of passepartout’s. It is he who sends the priests in the next train to Calcutta in the pursuit of the culprit. It was Fix who had directed the policeman to take Fogg and Passepartout into custody.
Judge Odadiah takes a note of the confession that had escaped Passepartout and condemns him to go to prison for 15 days and to pay a fine of three hundred pounds. Fogg too is condemned to prison and is asked to pay a fine. Fogg agrees to pay bail for himself and his servant. Passepartout is very disgusted with the fact that his master has to pay such a large sum of money. After taking back his shoes, Passepartout follows Fogg out of the courtroom. They immediately go to the Rangoon, the ship that was to leave for Hong Kong. Detective Fix is very angry because of Fogg’s excessive spending. Since a percentage on the recovered is assigned as a reward for the detectives, Fix is worried that by the time the journey ends and Fogg is caught, there will be a very negligible amount left.

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