Erotic Victorian Encounters with
THE
FELLOWSHIP OF
AMOROUS GENTLEMEN
Based on the Memoirs of That Redoubtable
Explorer and Globe-Trotter, the Honorable
Phileas Fogg
An Obelisk Library eBook
Smashwords Edition
2012
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy.
Copyright © 2012 by The Obelisk Library
Originally published in paperback by The Borgo Press, 2008. A somewhat different and longer version was published as 80 Days in Captivity by Blue Moon Books in 2005 by Anonymous. This edition has been somewhat revised and reshuffled.
Cover art from The Alien Stage Project. Used with permission.
Dedicated to Mr. Jules Verne,
an extraordinary gentleman of fine letters.
I do miss him dearly.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
The following comprises of a journal found among the possessions of an anonymous family estate and auctioned off at Sotheby’s. Authentication was made. It was purchased by an unnamed party and handed over to The Publisher for publication. The materials, when gathered, appeared to have been in the process of being printed and bound by an unknown publisher in London, as evidence by the handwritten “Preface” of an editor known as Charles Kinbote. No historical records that we have checked uncover a “Charles Kinbote” working in the blossoming British publishing industry in the late 1800s; it could be this was a pen name for T. S. Elliot and that the firm he worked for had, in the end, declined to release this journal to the public for any number of social and legal ramifications.
The journal, composed by an unknown young lady of the Victorian era known only as “C.” were written in large penmanship in small binder but in no discernable or logical order; indeed, at times some pages were indecipherable and some seem to be missing.
—R. R
Preface
I was there, that day, at the Reform Club, when Mr. Phileas Fogg won, in a game of cards (whist, to be exact) the sexual captivity of a one Mr. Henry Parker’s mysterious niece: a beautiful young lady many of us had seen in the better parts of London, always on the arm of her dastardly uncle—indeed, a shy girl possessing curly, reddish-blonde hair and pale, lightly freckled skin and exquisite green eyes that made many unmarried men (and the married gents as well, it goes without saying) take a long glance and wonder.
This was in March of 1875; I am not certain of the exact date. I am afraid that I tend to be amiss in these small details, despite my profession as a man of the published letters.
The card game was not going in Henry Parker’s favor, and he was known to be a man who did not like to lose (and had a bit of a temper). Contrary, Mr. Phileas Fogg was a man known to hardly, if ever, lose at either of whist or wager. I knew for a fact this was something he greatly prided himself on.
There were half a dozen gentlemen, including yours truly, watching this game with what I would call snide English interest. Mr. Parker was tapped out of funds, every single pound note now in Mr. Fogg’s possession.
‘Shall we call it a day, sir?’ said Fogg.
‘I will win my money back and more, sirrah,’ said Mr. Parker, barely keeping his anger inside that singular ruddy skin. ‘My credit is good, we both bank at Baring’s, so when I offer a cheque I trust you will honor it as good as money.’
Fogged leaned back in his chair and smiled. He stated, ‘I have something else in mind, other than money, for you to wager, Mr. Parker.’
‘And what would that be, Mr. Fogg?’
‘Tell me first, are you a man of your absolute word?’
‘When I say I will wager,’ returned Parker, ‘I mean it.’
‘Very well,’ said Mr. Fogg, ‘wager your lovely niece. What is her name? C. Yes. She will do just fine.’
There was a mumbling among the men at the Club.
‘Are you out of your mind, Mr. Fogg?’ cried Henry Parker.
‘Not in the least, sir,’ said Phileas Fogg. ‘It is no secret—as few scandals are secret—that you have your niece enslaved to your puerile favor. What you have over her head I can only speculate, and is none of my business. I would, however, enjoy engaging in a certain business with the girl.’
‘Are you insinuating my niece is a whore?’ said Mr. Parker, nearly rising out of his large chair.
‘What would you call her then?’ asked Mr. Fogg, raising a brow and scratching his beard.
Parker sat down and let out a heavy sigh. He nodded. ‘A trollop,’ he conceded, ‘a dirty strumpet, that girl.’
‘Enticing.’
‘I do not know what kind of man you honestly believe me to be, a devil or a lout,’ said Henry Parker, ‘but I will not gamble the body of my own favorite niece.’
‘Then you must be uncertain of your hand, and your ability to win—nay, to win against me, a man who never loses at a game of cards.’
‘Oh, Mr. Fogg, I assure you of my certainty, but I do not make it a habit of wagering the pleasures of young women like some sort of vile flesh merchant out of the Ottoman Empire.’
There was a moment of silence while the two men stared at and considered one another.
‘Since our mutual credit is in good standing,’ said Mr. Fogg, ‘I shall then propose to raise the stakes to ten thousand pounds.’
‘Ten thousand!’ said Mr. Parker, his face going the way of the colour red.
‘Can you meet this amount? Or can you not?’ asked Fogg.
‘Indeed I can.’
‘And so?’
‘So be it,’ said Henry Parker, who immediately lost the game to the predictable and smug Mr. Fogg. Parker was a rapidly humble man, and he said to Fogg: ‘I beseech you, sirrah, such an amount will financially crush me.’
‘What are you telling me, my dear friend?’ asked a rather amused Fogg.
‘I propose we return to your previous suggestion,’ said Parker. ‘The question of C.’s ownership.’
‘Yes,’ said Fogg, smiling and sitting back in his large chair and stroking his moustache in an agreeable manner, ‘we can do that. She is an exquisite example of the opposite sex, whore or not.’
‘And I assume you will take possession of the girl for the rest of her life? Or—’
‘Mr. Parker! I am a man who owns no slaves. C. will come and live at my home and do for me what she has been doing for you...let us say, for a period of eighty days.’
‘Eighty days!’ said Parker, and with some amusement he added: ‘A number you are now famous for.’
There was constrained laughter in the room.
‘What can I say?’ returned Fogg. ‘I have always been a man of impeccable consistency.’
‘I shall deliver her to you this evening,’ Henry Parker promised.
* * * * * * *
As far as I, or anyone else, knew, Henry Parker made good on his word. Neither he nor Phileas Fogg ever discussed the matter further at the Reform Club, but from that day on Parker was never seen in London with his niece by his side; the lass, in fact, was never seen again. Oh, there were rumors, and I listened to this scuttlebutt with great interest. Strange and sordid tales of wanton debauchery between Fogg and the girl, as well as her being given to such great men as Captain Nemo and a certain amateur detective (who must remained unnamed) for a night of perversion and abandon. Did I believe such tales? I knew very well how gossip could be stretched like a tortured body (in one of de Sade’s dungeons, no less) from the actual truth.
Nevertheless, this was all sweet candy for the lascivious imagination!
In early 1878 I was employed as a book editor and while some of the novels I acquired for my company were of the highest caliber of literature, others were nothing more than pure filth—the kind of material that helps keep a publisher within the margin of profit. One day, while at the Reform Club, the matter of Phileas Fogg and C. Parker came up in conversation—oh, the many speculations of what might have transpired in bed between the two were whispered and chattered (and laughed) about at great length!
One man said: ‘I understand she kept a journal of her eighty days with grand old Phileas.’
‘If such a thing exits,’ said I, although I did not think it did, ‘I would publish it at my firm, sight unseen.’
‘That could be arranged,’ another man said.
‘Oh?’
‘If you are willing to pay good money.’
‘If this log is real, yes indeed. But I have my doubts.’
‘I will contact you within the week, Mr. Kinbote.’
* * * * * * *
Eight days later, I found myself waiting—on a rainy, foggy day—in a dimly lit cobblestone London alley. It was a cold evening and I was about ready to leave, believing this foolish and thinking myself an imbecile to take these asinine measures. It was then that a short, wobbling man donning a bowler’s hat appeared.
‘Mr. Kinbote?’ He had a French accent.
‘Yes.’
‘My name is Jean Passepartout. Manservant to Mr. Phileas Fogg.’
‘Of course. I have seen you with him before.’
The little man, who had very sad eyes, removed a leather-bound journal from inside his thick coat. ‘This is the log, as transcribed by Mademoiselle Parker. It is, I must warn you, what we French call “a dirty book.”’
I said, ‘I hope so.’
‘Did you bring the money?’
I handed him an envelope stuffed with bank notes.
‘The lady has one request before we make this transaction,’ he said. ‘That if you publish this, it is to be anonymous. Her actual name shall never appear on the book.’
‘To that,’ said I, ‘you and the woman have my word.’
After all, how would I publish it otherwise?
He took the envelope and I possessed the memoir, the contents of which you, Dear Reader, now hold in your trembling (with desirous) hands.
Read this account at your own risk, to either the betterment or detriment of your heart, mind, body, and soul.
—Charles Kinbote
London
20 October 1879
A YOUNG WENCH’S
LOG WITH FOGG
INSTALLMENT I: In which I learn of my Uncle’s wager and loss as well as an account of what happened the first night at Mr. Fogg’s estate.
At the request of my present master and owner, Mr. Phileas Fogg of much renowned adventures (or so I have been told and led to believe, but one can never truly trust the words that come out of the mouths of such devious men), I am keeping this journal of my days under his submission and whim. To begin, how did I get here? My story would have to start with my father’s untimely death due to the pneumonia and, six months later, my mother’s subsequent demise due to a broken heart, and the many debts that my father left which were passed on to her, and then to me and my younger brother. Things appeared dire in those dark days, but my dear Uncle Henry made a trip from London to Essex and assured me that he would take care of certain affairs and amounts outstanding, and all would then be fine. He kissed my hand, and then kissed my cheek, and then tried to kiss me on the mouth. I would not let him kiss me on the mouth! I recognized the way he looked at me, I had seen men stare at me in such a fashion—usually elderly gents with bad intentions. Uncle Henry’s intentions were just as base for on that first night he came into my bedchamber and forced himself upon me. I knew it was wrong but deep down I, for some unfathomable reason, enjoyed what happened more than I wish to confess. Perhaps this had to do with some of the fantasies and dreams I had at night about marauding pirates and Vikings. I did not, however, let my Uncle know of my secret pleasure; instead, I wept like a fragile creature and cried, ‘How could you do this to me? I am seventeen and was a virgin. What man will marry me now?’
‘I shall marry you,’ he said, ‘it is the only just thing to do.’
‘But that is not possible, Uncle Henry!’
‘I have had you once, girl, and I fear I will not be able to stop myself and have to have you again and again. So I should make you my wife, although I know very well the law will not allow such a union.’
‘Then have me!’ I said, not quite the chaste young lady any longer; and after he made love to me a second time, he understood that I enjoyed the sin we were committing.
‘You are nothing but a whore,’ he said, and again I wept. ‘I have a proposition for a whore such as yourself,’ said he, ‘I have cleared all your father’s unfortunate debts and I shall enroll your brother to finest boarding school where he will learn to be a gentlemen of the world, and you shall come and live with me, and share my bed whenever I desire...and I have great desire, that I can assure you.’
Yes, Dear Reader, I am but a whore, a girl who enjoys every manner of illicit intercourse. Damn the Bible and all its restrictions! I have never been a religious girl. By agreeing to my Uncle Henry’s terms, I essentially became his sex slave. I even signed a contract to such, binding me to his loins and releasing me at the age of twenty-five.
As I write in this log, I am nineteen, and my uncle has given me to Mr. Phileas Fogg for sexual pleasure.
Imagine my dismay when Uncle Henry told me what happened! He had lost a bet, he said, and I was the goods he no longer owned.
I was shocked, yes, but I was not surprised.
‘Oh, Uncle,’ said I, ‘how could you?’
‘It is only for eighty days,’ said he.
‘But I do not know this man!’ said I.
‘And have you not, for my visual enjoyment, coupled with gentlemen you did not know?’ asked my Uncle.
He had a point but I told him I did not want to do this.
‘You have no choice,’ he reminded me, ‘for we have a contract, and the contract says you shall always be submissive to me, and do anything and everything I say.’
I packed some clothing and was dispatched by carriage to No. 7, Saville Row, Burlington Gardens. The property was a handsome estate, much more refined and civil-looking than my Uncle’s. Mr. Phileas Fogg, whom I only knew by reputation, turned out to be a handsome man himself, much to my relief, and not much older than my Uncle (his mid-forties, I would say). Fogg resembled a bearded, tranquil Byron—well, this is what Mr. Fogg has instructed me to write in these pages.
‘Am I not Byronic?’ was the first thing he said to me.
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, meekly.
‘And you, young lady, are enjoyable to the eye.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I am impatient to see you completely naked,’ he said. ‘Oh, we will have grand times together!’
‘I will do whatever you ask,’ I said, so he would know that I was living up to whatever matters my Uncle had promised him.
Mr. Fogg showed me upstairs to what he said would be my bedchambers for the next eighty days. I was impressed by the size of the room, three times the size of what my Uncle was providing me, as well as the large canopied bed and the antique furniture that Mr. Fogg informed me were fifteenth-century Prussian.
‘You are very kind,’ I said; ‘I hope I will be able to give you much pleasure during my stay.’
‘It would please me, at this moment,’ he said, ‘to gaze upon your naked flesh.’
I removed my garments in the manner that my Uncle instructed, the way he said men liked to observe wanton women such as myself disrobe. Not the way a wife might do for a husband, no; but a way a whore does for a man she is about to fornicate with for money. Already I was wet between the legs by the very thought of this, and the excitement of the new situation I found myself in, caused goose bumps on my skin. Mr. Fogg sat on the bed and kept his eyes focused on my breasts and between my legs. He nodded with what looked like approval, uttering ‘yes’ and ‘good’ and smiling at me. ‘Turn around,’ said he, ‘let me get a good look at your arse.’ I did as I was told. ‘Now spread the cheeks of your arse for me,’ said he.
‘But Mr. Fogg!’ I protested, blushing.
‘Are you or are you not my slave, young lady?’ he queried of me.
‘Yes, Mr. Fogg,’ said I, ‘you won me in your wager with my horrid Uncle, and I will do as you ask,’ and so I did the naughty thing he asked and I liked it.
‘You are a very bad girl,’ Mr. Fogg stated.
‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I am.’
‘It has occurred to me that you may require a spanking,’ he said.
‘This may be so.’
‘Did Henry bend you over his knee?’
‘In more than one way, sir.’
‘Then I shall lay you across my lap, right here,’ said Mr. Fogg, ‘and make your tender arse a tad red.’
I understood what I had to do. I presented my bottom to him, lying across his legs. He slapped each cheek gently. ‘Bad bad girl,’ he said with absolute delight.
I told him: ‘You can hit me harder if you like.’
‘How hard, my dear?’
‘As hard as Mr. Fogg wishes.’
‘It is not my wish to cause you pain.’
‘Perhaps the desire for a little pain is my wish.’
‘Oh, indeed, you are a bad girl!’
‘Indeed.’
He spanked me harder.
‘Do you like that, young strumpet?’ he asked.
‘Very much so, Mr. Fogg,’ I returned.
‘Shall I hit you harder?’
‘If it pleases you, it pleases me.’
Back and forth, slap, slap, spank, spank, and then Mr. Fogg said, ‘It would please me to feel how damp your cunny is,’ and he inserted two fingers into my hole. My body quickly became spasmodic; I almost fell onto the floor.
‘Mr. Fogg,’ said I, ‘it would please me to pleasure you with my mouth.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that would be most kind on your part.’
My knees were on the floor and my face was in his lap. I unbuttoned his trousers, perhaps too eagerly, and was surprised at the size of Mr. Fogg’s lobcock: it was three times the size of my Uncle’s. So long and so thick, pulsing with monstrous veins and smelling like a chamber pot! I was not sure I could get my mouth around the head but I managed. I used two hands at the base of it and was fearful of the amount of man seed the giant member might shoot out. But Mr. Fogg said, ‘I want to be inside you.’ He said, ‘I want to fuck you.’ I had never heard that word used in such a manner, but I was well aware I was not here to get married, to be made love to; I was here to be fucked.
It was not easy for Mr. Fogg to slip it in, because of his girth. It was painful like the first time but after relaxing a great deal, my vagina stretched enough for him to fuck me. And he fucked me twice. And I enjoyed it very much.
‘Will you stay with me?’ I asked my new master. ‘Or do you wish me to sleep in your bed?’
‘I do not stay a full night with whores,’ Mr. Fogg said, pulling up his trousers. ‘Clean up, get a good night’s rest, and I shall see you in the morning.’
He left me there with his man seed leaking from my madge and onto the bed; I felt split open and dirty, just the way I was supposed to feel, I surmise.
INSTALLMENT II: In which I encounter Mr. Fogg’s curious French manservant.
Not fifteen minutes had passed when the door to my room opened. I expected Mr. Fogg and was happy that he wanted me again. Instead, a little man in servant’s clothing came inside, carrying a tray with warmed milk and some biscuits. I quickly covered myself with the bedding. ‘My name is Jean Passepartout, in the employ of Mr. Fogg,’ said he. ‘Do not be afraid, mademoiselle. Would you care for some warm milk?’
‘Thank you,’ I said, taking the milk and drinking it.
He watched me like one would look at a painting. ‘You have an exquisite neck,’ he said.
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘Now that you have that milk in your belly, would you like to drink the warm milk from my penis?’
‘Sir,’ said I, ‘did Mr. Fogg send you in here for that?’
‘He doe snot know I am here. In fact, he went out for a while, as he often does. I am here on my own accord, and I would like to sample the slut we will have under this roof for the next eighty days.’
‘I do not make it a habit of putting strange little Frenchmen in my mouth!’ I said.
‘Then I will have the filth between your legs!’ he yelled, jumping on top of me and holding my arms pinned above my head. ‘You smell so disgusting!’ he cried. ‘C’est très magnifique!”
‘I’ve not cleaned myself,’ I told him, ‘since our master’s visit.’
‘It is my lot to clean up after my master,’ said he, ‘I do not mind wallowing in his scum!’
Passepartout’s phallus was a small one, smaller than my Uncle’s, and after the stretching I took from Mr. Fogg, I must admit I hardly felt the little man inside me. This did not seem to trouble the Frenchman, and he was done within a minute.
‘Please excuse my outburst of lust,’ he said, bowed, and left me there in the bed.
I ate the biscuits, drew a bath, and then went to sleep.
That is all, for now.
INSTALLMENT III: In which my Master, Mr. Phileas Fogg, spanks my tender little arse again for being such a strumpet.
It was before noon that my Master, Mr. Fogg, came to this room that is my prison. He sighed, stood above me and shook his head. I knew that something was wrong and that the end result was going to be pain and humiliation…I anticipated this greatly and felt myself getting wet between the legs.
‘You wanton whore!’ said he.
‘Yes,’ I said, for how could I deny such an accusation?
He then did what I expected, what I hoped for in my heart but would never admit with the words that come out of my dirty mouth: Mr. Fogg laid me across his lap and gave each of my cheeks a good spanking, stopping now and then to insert a finger into either of my two throbbing holes.
‘It excites me,’ said this gentleman who won me in a card game, ‘to think of you being with another man like that. That gives me ideas, you see. I thought I would keep you all to myself, but I realize now that I must share my prize….’
‘Send your manservant in then,’ I told him in a haughty, maybe too defiant voice, ‘send him in to do what he wants, and watch, because I have a feeling that watching is something you like to do.’
‘Yes,’ said Mr. Fogg, ‘but right now….’
Right now he wanted me to get on my knees and take him in his mouth again. This is I did, yes I did; I would suck on his man root all day long if he required me.
When he was done and had greedily spent himself into my mouth, Mr. Fogg said, ‘It is not Passepartout that I wish to see you with; in fact, that would be the antithesis of my desire. No; but there are others….’
‘Others?’ said I.
‘Others,’ said Mr. Fogg, ‘whom I call my contemporaries, my colleagues, my friends. Extraordinary gentlemen—each and every one of them. Fascinating, secretive, and always up for fucking a pretty young lady such as yourself,’ and with that, he stroked my face oh so very gently, and the quickly slapped it. He slapped me so hard that my brain rattled and I saw spots before my eyes. ‘What do you have to say about that, wench?’ he asked.
‘I will do whatever you want,’ I said.
‘Of course you will.’
‘I am yours.’
‘I own your body, for the time being,’ he said.
‘Yes, Mr. Fogg, you do.’
‘Don’t forget it.’
‘How could I?’
He slapped me again.
‘And do not take that tone with me,’ said he.
I nodded.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘get on that bed so I can stick myself inside your body.’
INSTALLMENT IV: In which my master, Mr. Ph*
INSTALLMENT V: In which I timidly ask Mr. Fogg about his alleged adventures.
After he had his way with me, I lay in my new master’s arms and he stroked my hair. For a moment, I almost felt as if we were a couple in love, or man and wife. I had a fantasy of him kissing me, and just when I was enraptured with the images in my head, and just when I was about to reach up and kiss the bearded man myself, he smacked my bottom good (as if he knew what I was thinking) and told me what a bad little girl I was.
This I knew, this I agreed. To this, I said, ‘Yes, Mr. Fogg.’
And he hit my bottom again, but good, and I shuddered with delight at his burning and sturdy touch.
‘Never in all my travels have I encountered such a wanton whore as yourself,’ he said to me, softly, his lips close to my ear.
‘Oh, Mr. Fogg,’ said I, ‘I do not believe you!’
‘You doubt my word, wench?’
‘I do, sir.’
He gave me a light smack for that.
‘You should never doubt me,’ said he, ‘you should never doubt. Always keep that in mind, C.’
‘Surely,’ I said, ‘you have met a lass or two much more horrible than I.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said, and as he spoke he nodded a little and stroked his fine blonde beard, ‘but none so young. More often than not, it takes many years for a woman to reach such depths of depravity and continue to hold her composure such as you. To the age of twenty-seven or even thirty, based on my experience.’
‘That is so old!’ said I, but I was trying to be amusing.
Mr. Fogg laughed, but he had a serious look in his eyes. ‘That is not, in the grand cosmic scale of all matters, not so old.’
‘I suppose you are correct. I, however, shall never live to such an age, I fear.’
‘And why do you say that, sweet little one?’
‘It is something I simply know,’ I told him, and I was quite serious about this.
‘Is it that you do not wish to grow older,’ he said, ‘or do you feel that an unfortunate fate awaits you?’
‘A little of both, it seems.’
‘How so?’
‘I am uncertain….’
‘Tell me more.’
‘I do not know if there is more to tell.’
He asked, ‘Would you call it intuition? Have you had dreams? Visions? Have voices unknown to you spoken and said certain things?’
‘I simply cannot see myself alive past the page of twenty,’ I said.
‘So soon!’ he said.
‘Maybe twenty-two, but no later,’ I said. ‘It all seems to far, far away. As if another life awaits me. And do I even want that life? Do I even want the life I have now.’
He laughed.
‘You are amused,’ I said, weakly. ‘Mr. Fogg.’
‘Yes,’ he said, touching my hair and then my face, ‘and a wee bit sad.’
‘Sad?’
‘To hear such words come out of such a pretty mouth.’
‘My mouth is pretty,’ I said in my best devious voice, ‘when you place your whorepipe inside of it.’
‘Your face is pretty too,’ he said, ‘as are your eyes, and your hair, and your arms, and your back, and your stomach, and your legs. That is, your entire body; your entire self; your entire being.’
‘What of my soul?’ asked I.
‘I do not, yet, know your soul,’ he said.
‘And you do not want to,’ I told him, ‘for it is a wretched, ugly thing.’
‘But not your body,’ he said.
‘This body is yours, Mr. Fogg,’ I said.
‘Indeed,’ said he, and he mounted me rather quickly and this time the act of fucking was long and drawn out. We both sweated and made passionate sounds. I felt satisfied. I felt good.
We lay there next to each other again the way normal lovers should.
‘Tell me about your adventures around the world, Mr. Fogg,’ I suggested.
‘What is there to tell?’
‘I am certain you have much to say, sir.’
‘And why do you think that?’
‘I have heard—’
‘Heard what, my wench?’
‘Certain things.’
‘Consisting of?’
‘Your adventures,’ said I. ‘Nothing too specific. This and that. Things that seem impossible.’
‘Impossible or implausible?’
‘I do not know, sir.’
He sighed and said to me, ‘There are so many stories, so many adventures, so much fact and so much that has been changed into fiction. I would not know where to begin.’
‘So it’s all true?’ I asked.
‘You doubt me?’
‘Not at all.’
‘What did I say…?’
‘Never doubt you,’ I said, ‘and this, Mr. Fogg, I never shall.’
‘Good, good,’ said he, touching my hair and tangling it between his long fingers.
‘So why are you not presently on an adventure now, Mr. Fogg?’ I asked him a little later into the night.
‘A hero cannot be out in the world non-stop,’ he told me; ‘all men of action must stop, relax, rest, and love.’