eleven o'clock a.m. on Wednesday, the
9th of October
The polished gentleman disappeared to give place to the bank robber . His photograph , which was hung with those of the rest of the members at the Reform Club , was minutely examined , and it betrayed , feature by feature , the description of the robber which had been provided to the police . The mysterious habits of Phileas Fogg were recalled ; his solitary ways , his sudden departure ; and it seemed clear that , in undertaking a tour round the world on the pretext of a wager , he had had no other end in view than to elude the detectives , and throw them off his track . The circumstances under which this telegraphic dispatch about Phileas Fogg was sent were as follows : The steamer Mongolia , belonging to the Peninsular and Oriental Company , built of iron , of two thousand eight hundred tons burden , and five hundred horse-power , was due at eleven o'clock a.m. on Wednesday , the 9th of October , at Suez . The Mongolia plied regularly between Brindisi and Bombay via the Suez Canal , and was one of the fastest steamers belonging to the company , always making more than ten knots an hour between Brindisi and Suez , and nine and a half between Suez and Bombay . Two men were promenading up and down the wharves , among the crowd of natives and strangers who were sojourning at this once straggling village -- now , thanks to the enterprise of M. Lesseps , a fast-growing town . One was the British consul at Suez , who , despite the prophecies of the English Government , and the unfavourable predictions of Stephenson , was in the habit of seeing , from his office window , English ships daily passing to and fro on the great canal , by which the old roundabout route from England to India by the Cape of Good Hope was abridged by at least a half .