Around the World in 100 Days Read online

  “Excellent!” Hardiman rubbed his hands together. “Shall we shake on it, then?”

  “One moment,” said Sullivan. “Perhaps we should set some sort of parameters, here. After all, if we give him an unlimited amount of time, of course he can do it. He could rebuild the car as many times as necessary. That wouldn’t prove anything.”

  Harry did a quick series of calculations in his head. He knew from repeatedly tracing the route of his father’s famous journey that the distance around the world was roughly 25,000 miles. He could count on the Flash to average at least 25 miles per hour. If he drove ten hours each day, that was 250 miles per day. Two hundred and fifty divided into 25,000 was: “One hundred days,” he said.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Sullivan.

  “Does one hundred days sound like a fair allowance of time?”

  The men glanced at one another. “You really think that’s enough?” said Flanagan.

  “Don’t argue with the lad,” said Hardiman. “If he says he can do it that quickly, let him prove it. When will you start?”

  “Within the week.”

  “Excellent!” Hardiman repeated, gleefully. “Dr. Doyle, would you please make a note of all of this, for the record? Six thousand pounds. One hundred days.”

  “One more thing,” said Sullivan. “We should clearly stipulate that the vehicle must go the entire distance under its own power—that is, not aboard a flatcar or a ship, or towed by horses.”

  “You can hardly expect me to drive across the ocean,” said Harry. “Or across rivers.”

  “Of course not,” said Hardiman. “Let the record state, then, that you may ship the motorcar across any and all bodies of water, but otherwise the motorcar must travel under its own power. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.” Harry shook the hands of the three men in turn. “And now, if you will excuse me, I have quite a number of preparations to make.”

  As he left the library, he heard Hardiman say snidely to the others, “He needs to prepare himself all right—to lose this wager!”

  Harry’s heart was racing and he felt flushed and vibrant, the way he did after bowling a strenuous inning of cricket. “Go ahead and laugh, gentlemen,” he muttered under his breath. “The last laugh will be mine.”

  He was halfway down the stairs before a thought occurred to him that dampened his buoyant mood. If he was going to travel all the way around the world, he would need a certain amount of money for expenses—just how much money, he wasn’t sure. According to Harry’s mother, her husband had spent something on the order of ten thousand pounds in making his epic journey, but that was an extreme case. After all, in addition to paying for his passage and Passepartout’s, Fogg had purchased a whole ship, not to mention an entire elephant.

  Harry’s expenses would be far more modest. Fuel was no problem; the Flash would burn nearly anything, from kerosene to wood chips. Nor was lodging; he could sleep in the car. But he would need food and steamship tickets and that sort of thing.

  Every cent of his own income had gone into building the Flash, and, though his mother had ample money for personal and household expenses, she had nothing put by.

  There was no option but to approach his father.

  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.

  FIVE In which

  HARRY’S PLANS ARE SERIOUSLY ALTERED, IF NOT RUINED ALTOGETHER

  Harry’s parents had dismissed a valet because they considered him a bad influence on their son; unfortunately, they could do nothing about Harry’s choice of friends.

  Gentlemen were expected to associate with others of their class. Johnny Shaugnessey was not even close. His mother was a naive farmgirl who came to London to better her lot. She married Michael Shaugnessey, an honest blacksmith who, for all his hard work, could barely keep them fed and clothed. Within a year, she died giving birth to his son. When Johnny was twelve, an Irish mob began demanding protection money from the artisans and merchants of York Court, most of whom were also Irish. Michael Shaugnessey refused to pay them, so they beat him brutally with his own hammer; he died a week later.

  Even at that age, Johnny was as large and strong as most men. He found work with a friend of his father’s, a carriage maker, and was beginning to show some real promise as both a craftsman and a designer when an accident ended his career. One day a young gentleman arrived to pick up a fast phaeton that the firm had built to order for him. Johnny harnessed the customer’s high-strung bay mare to the carriage, then crouched down to check the whiffletree, which wasn’t moving as freely as it should. The horse lashed out with a rear hoof, catching Johnny on the top of the head, caving in his skull.

  A surgeon at London Hospital Medical College managed to save the boy’s life by cutting away the broken bone and covering the resulting hole with a thin metal plate. But he could do nothing to repair the damage done to the brain. Though Johnny recovered most of his faculties to some degree, he never quite returned to normal.

  At the same time, the accident left him with one ability he had not possessed before: He developed an uncanny rapport with all things mechanical, from clocks to steam engines. He seemed to understand instinctively not only how they worked but how they could be made to work better. It was as though, by virtue of the metal plate screwed into his skull, he had become part machine himself and spoke the language, as it were.

  Johnny led a Spartan existence, sleeping in one corner of his father’s old shop, cooking his scanty meals on the forge. Despite his slow, sometimes sullen manner, his skill as a mechanic and blacksmith earned him a fair amount of business—more than he would have liked, actually. He did not deal well with people; he much preferred to spend his time in the rickety shed at the rear of the smithy, tinkering with machines. For the past year, most of his efforts had, like Harry’s, been focused on a single project, his most ambitious to date—a steam-driven motorcar.

  When Harry arrived, direct from making his devil’s bargain with Phileas Fogg, he found Johnny sitting on the dirt floor of the shed, soldering copper pipe with an acetylene torch. Harry examined the right front fender of the Flash, the one he had caved in when he struck the beer wagon. Johnny had pounded it out so skillfully that the damage was barely visible. “Splendid work, my lad,” said Harry. Though Johnny was probably at least twenty, Harry always thought of him as being younger, and often spoke to him in an almost parental fashion. “What’s that you’re making?”

  “Condenser,” mumbled Johnny.

  “A condenser? Oh, I see. For the steam. We’re going to catch it, cool it, and recirculate it, back into the water tank.” Heedless of the dirt, Harry sat on a packing crate. “Here, let me help.” He held one length of pipe while Johnny soldered another to it.

  “With this, I figure ...” Johnny paused, as if he needed to work out the words in his head before he spoke them. “I figure she’ll go two hundred miles. Maybe more.”

  “On one tank of water?” Harry whistled. “That’s impressive. I was just wondering what I’d do if I had to drive through a long stretch of country with no water. I was afraid I might have to relieve myself in the tank.”

  Johnny gave him a crooked grin and shook his head. Then a suspicious look came over his slightly lopsided face. “Why would you?”

  “Why would I what?” said Harry innocently.

  “Go someplace with no water.”

  “Oh, that. No reason. I was just wondering. It’s what you call a hypothetical situation.”

  Johnny got to his feet, dusting the dirt from his trousers. “Liar.”

  Harry eyed the burning torch. “Would you please shut that thing off?”

  “I may have to use it,” said Johnny. “If you don’t tell me.”

  Harry laughed. “All right, all right. But you might want to sit down again.”

  “Why?”

  “Because what I have to say is staggering in its import.” He paused for dramatic effect. “I’ve entered the Flash in a race.”

  “A race? With who?”

  “Not against other motorcars. Against a time limit.”

  “How long?”

  “One hundred days.”

  Johnny stared at him blankly. “The distance, I mean.”

  “Oh, that. A mere twenty-five thousand miles. More or less.” Harry made a circular motion with his hand. “Around the world, actually.”

  Johnny was in fact feeling a sudden need to sit down; he perched on the bumper of the Flash. “You’re joking again.”

  “It’s true, I swear it.”

  Johnny was silent a moment, then said softly, “You never asked me.”

  “What do you mean? Oh, I see. You mean that I didn’t consult
you before making the wager. Well, I suppose I felt it was my decision to make, since it’s my money we’ve been using to build the Flash.” The reproachful look on Johnny’s face made Harry a bit ashamed. “I’m sorry, that was unfair; you’ve done the lion’s share of the work. She’s your motorcar as much as mine.” He shrugged. “Perhaps I should have asked you first. But I just assumed you’d want to race her. After all, think of what it will mean if we win, lad. It’ll prove to everyone once and for all what the motorcar is capable of!”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Don’t know what? Oh, what she’s capable of.” Harry gave the fender of the Flash a confident pat. “Well, then, it looks as if we’ll find out, eh?”

  Though Harry was known to exaggerate, when he had bragged that the Flash was a different sort of motorcar altogether, he was not overstating the case. Over the previous half-century, inventors had come up with a wide variety of self-propelled vehicles. But the steam-driven ones, with their huge boilers and heavy cast-iron engines, were too slow and ungainly to be practical. The newly developed internal combustion engine was far lighter, but also far less powerful, so “petro cars” tended to be small and rather flimsy, totally unsuited to high speeds or long distances.

  To propel the Flash, Johnny had built a boiler of thin-gauge steel wrapped with piano wire for strength; at ninety pounds, it weighed half as much as the standard boiler, yet could handle three times as much steam pressure. With the help of a machinist, he had designed and created an engine that weighed a mere fifty pounds but was more efficient than engines four times its size.

  Since most of the mechanical parts were concealed beneath the seats or the floorboards, the Flash looked much like any other large carriage. The difference lay in how it performed. The ash-wood frame was strong and flexible yet lighter than steel, and the body was made of aluminum, so the motorcar weighed no more than a typical four-horse coach. But its steam engine had the power of twenty or thirty horses—theoretically, at least. How reliably it could deliver that power had yet to be seen.

  There was no time to road test the car and make improvements or adjustments. Harry had promised to be ready in a week—just enough time to complete the tasks they already knew were necessary: hooking up the condenser, putting better lining on the brake shoes, replacing a faulty steam valve, getting the water gauge to work, adding a cyclometer to measure the miles, fashioning an extra set of wheels, and, of course, purchasing all the equipment and supplies Harry would need.