a quarter before nine P.M.
`` You do not forget when you are due in London again ? '' asked Stuart . `` In eighty days . On Saturday , the 21st of December , 1872 , at a quarter before nine P.M. Good-by , gentlemen . '' Phileas Fogg and his servant seated themselves in a first-class carriage at twenty minutes before nine . Five minutes later the whistle screamed , and the train slowly glided out of the station . The night was dark , and a fine , steady rain was falling .