New York, forty-five minutes late

The train from Chicago came into the station on the New Jersey side of the Hudson at a quarter past eleven on the night of 11 December. We crossed by ferry and went straight to the Cunard pier. The China, bound for Liverpool, had sailed at nine. We were forty-five minutes late, if one counts from the moment the gangway would have been taken up, and two hours and a quarter late if one counts from the moment she cast off. I prefer the smaller figure. It is a better indication of how closely run the thing was.

There was no other steamer leaving that night for any British port. I looked at the sailing lists by the light of a gas lamp. The Great Eastern was not sailing for some days. A French liner was going to Le Havre the next week, an Italian to Genoa, a German to Bremen. None of them would do.

Passepartout took it hardest. He said that it was his fault, that every delay since Bombay had been his fault, that if he had not gone into the temple with his shoes on, or into the opium house in Hong Kong, or under the train at Fort Kearney, we should have been comfortably aboard the China with a stateroom and a fire. I told him that if he had not gone under the train at Fort Kearney there would have been no one aboard anything. He did not find this as consoling as I had intended.

01 The St. Nicholas Hotel

We went to the St. Nicholas Hotel on Broadway, which is large, well-lit and full of people who appear to have just arrived from somewhere important. I took rooms for the party. Mrs Aouda looked at me several times during supper as though waiting for me to show some sign of distress. I did not show any, because I did not feel any that was of practical use.

The position was this. I had nine days, thirteen hours and forty-five minutes to reach the Reform Club. The Atlantic can be crossed in that time by a fast ship. There was no fast ship. Therefore I needed a ship that was not on any list, and I would find it in the morning, because ships, unlike trains, are not obliged to keep to a timetable and their masters can be talked to. That was the whole of the matter. Having settled it, I saw no purpose in thinking about it further, and I went to bed.

I slept, as I generally do, without interruption. Passepartout told me afterwards that he did not, and that he heard Mrs Aouda walking in the room next to his until well after two. I regret this. I should have explained my reasoning to her more fully. I have been told since that I explain my reasoning only to people who do not need it.

02 Looking for a ship

I was up before seven and down at the waterfront by half past. I told the others to stay in the hotel and be ready to leave at an hour's notice. The East River and the Hudson were full of vessels, steamers and sailing ships at their wharves, and I walked along them looking for smoke. A ship with steam up is a ship about to go somewhere.

Most of the ships I approached were not going to sea that day, or were going somewhere useless, or had masters who laughed. I do not mind being laughed at by men who are wrong. Near the Battery, a little before noon, I found a screw steamer with a sharp iron hull, a good line, and smoke coming from her funnel. Her name was the Henrietta. She was bound for Bordeaux, which is not Liverpool. I went aboard to see the captain about that.

Balance: nine days and some hours. Ship found. Captain to be persuaded.