The next morning, Passepartout was exhausted and starving. He had to find food somehow, and quickly.
“I could sell my watch,” he thought, “but I’d probably starve before anyone bought it.”
Then he remembered his voice.
“I can sing! Why not earn some money by singing in the streets?”
He knew several French and English songs and guessed that the Japanese might enjoy music. After all, they were constantly playing gongs, drums, tambourines, and other noisy instruments.
“It’s probably too early for a concert,” he decided. “I’ll wait a few hours.”
As he wandered through the streets, another thought occurred to him.
“I’m dressed far too well to look like a wandering singer. I need a costume.”
After a long search, he found a shop selling old clothes.
“I’d like to exchange these clothes for something more Japanese,” Passepartout told the shopkeeper.
The shopkeeper liked his European clothes, so they made a deal. Passepartout soon came out wearing an old Japanese coat and a faded, strangely shaped turban. A few small silver coins were jingling in his pocket.
“Excellent!” he thought. “I’ll pretend I’m at the Carnival.”
His first stop was a small tea-house. He ordered some rice and half a bird and ate as if he had not seen food in weeks.
Once his stomach was full, he became more practical.
“Now, Passepartout, don’t lose your head. I can’t keep exchanging clothes forever. I need to get out of Japan as quickly as possible.”
He began thinking about the steamers sailing for America.
“I could offer myself as a cook or servant. In return, they could give me food and passage. Once I reach San Francisco, I’ll find a way to continue my journey.”
But there was a problem.
“How am I going to cross nearly five thousand miles of the Pacific?”
Still, Passepartout was not the sort of man to give up on an idea. He headed toward the docks.
As he got closer, however, doubts began to trouble him.
“What American ship would want a cook or servant who looks like this? And who would trust me? I have no references, no papers, nothing!”
Just then, he noticed an enormous poster being carried through the streets by a man dressed like a clown.
Passepartout stopped and read it.
“Japanese Acrobatic Troupe! Honourable William Batulcar, Proprietor! Final Performances Before Departure for the United States! The Long Noses! The Long Noses! Under the Direct Patronage of the God Tingou! Great Attraction!”
“The United States!” Passepartout exclaimed. “That’s exactly where I want to go!”
He followed the clown back into the Japanese quarter.
About fifteen minutes later, he arrived at a large theater covered with colorful decorations. The walls were painted with wild pictures of jugglers and acrobats.
This was the establishment of the Honourable William Batulcar, a showman who ran a troupe of jugglers, clowns, acrobats, gymnasts, and other performers. The troupe was preparing to leave Japan for the United States after its final performances.
Passepartout went inside and asked to see Mr. Batulcar.
The man soon appeared.
“What do you want?” he asked, apparently thinking Passepartout was Japanese.
“Do you need a servant, sir?” Passepartout asked.
“A servant?” Batulcar stroked his thick gray beard. “I already have two. They are loyal, obedient, and have never left me.”
He raised his arms.
“And here they are!”
Passepartout stared at the man’s powerful arms.
“So I’m of no use to you?”
“None at all.”
“Damn! I was hoping to cross the Pacific with your troupe.”
Batulcar looked at him more closely.
“You’re not Japanese, are you? And you’re certainly not dressed like yourself. Who are you?”
“A man dresses according to his circumstances,” Passepartout replied.
“That’s true. You’re French, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Parisian, born and raised.”
“Then you must know how to make funny faces.”
Passepartout frowned.
“Why does being French make you a specialist in that?”
“Frenchmen are good at making faces, aren’t they?”
“We are,” Passepartout admitted, “but no better than Americans.”
“Fair enough. Well, if I can’t use you as a servant, perhaps I can use you as a clown. French clowns are popular abroad, just as foreign clowns are popular in France.”
“Really?”
“You look strong.”
“I’m much stronger after a good meal.”
“And can you sing?”
“Yes.”
“But can you sing while standing on your head, with a spinning top on your left foot and a sword balanced on your right?”
Passepartout paused.
“I think I can,” he said, remembering some tricks from his younger days.
“That’s good enough,” Batulcar replied.
The deal was made immediately.
At last, Passepartout had a job. He would perform with Batulcar’s famous Japanese troupe.
It was hardly the most respectable occupation, but it had one enormous advantage.
“In a week, I’ll be on my way to San Francisco,” he thought.
The final performance began at three o’clock.
Japanese musicians soon filled the entrance with a deafening mixture of gongs, drums, flutes, and tambourines.
Passepartout had no time to rehearse his act. Instead, Batulcar assigned him to help with the troupe’s biggest attraction: a giant human pyramid performed by the Long Noses of the god Tingou.
Before three o’clock, the theater was packed.
Europeans and Japanese, Chinese and other visitors, men, women, and children all crowded into the seats and boxes.
The musicians took their places and began playing their instruments with enormous energy.
The show was similar to other acrobatic performances, but the Japanese performers were extraordinarily skilled.
One performer used a fan and pieces of paper to create an elegant illusion of butterflies and flowers.
Another used the fragrant smoke from his pipe to draw strange blue shapes and letters in the air.
A third juggled burning candles. He extinguished them one after another by passing them through his mouth, then somehow relit them without stopping his performance.
Another performer used spinning tops.
The tops seemed almost alive in his hands. They rolled along pipes, sword blades, wires, and even strands of hair stretched across the stage.
They spun around the rims of large glasses, crossed bamboo ladders, flew into different corners of the stage, and created strange musical sounds.
The performers threw them into the air and hit them back and forth like shuttlecocks, yet the tops never stopped spinning.
They even put them into their pockets and pulled them out again, still spinning.
The acrobats and gymnasts were just as impressive.
They performed on ladders, poles, balls, barrels, and almost anything else they could balance on.
But the audience was waiting for the main attraction.
The Long Noses.
Europeans had never seen anything quite like them.
The performers claimed to be followers of the god Tingou. They dressed like people from the Middle Ages and wore magnificent wings on their backs.
But what made them truly strange were their enormous artificial noses.
The noses were made of bamboo.
Some were five feet long.
Others were six feet.
Some were even ten feet long.
Some were straight, others curved. Some were decorated with ribbons, while others had ridiculous fake warts.
The performers attached these giant noses to their real ones and used them as part of their acrobatic acts.
A dozen Long Noses lay flat on their backs with their enormous noses pointing toward the ceiling.
Other performers, dressed like lightning rods, jumped from one nose to another, performing flips and complicated acrobatics.
Finally came the biggest stunt of the evening.
The performers were supposed to create a giant human pyramid representing the Car of Juggernaut.
But instead of climbing onto one another’s shoulders, they would balance themselves on top of the giant noses.
There was only one problem.
The performer who normally formed the base of the pyramid had left the troupe.
Batulcar needed someone strong and agile.
Passepartout was chosen.
Poor Passepartout felt miserable when he put on his costume.
The ridiculous outfit had brightly colored wings, and he had to attach a six-foot-long fake nose to his own face.
“This is certainly a low point in my life,” he thought.
Then he remembered why he was doing it.
“At least this ridiculous nose is feeding me.”
He walked onto the stage and took his position at the bottom of the pyramid.
The other performers lay down beside him, their long noses pointing toward the ceiling.
A second group climbed onto those noses.
Then a third group climbed onto the second.
Then a fourth.
Higher and higher the performers stacked themselves until a huge human monument rose almost to the ceiling.
The crowd erupted in applause.
The musicians struck up a deafening tune.
And then—
The pyramid began to wobble.
The balance shifted.
One of the noses at the bottom suddenly disappeared.
The entire human monument collapsed like a house of cards.
And it was all Passepartout’s fault.
He had suddenly spotted someone in the audience.
His master.
Without thinking, Passepartout abandoned his position, jumped over the footlights, and rushed toward the right-hand gallery.
He crashed down at the feet of the spectator.
“Ah! My master! My master!”
Fogg stared at him.
“You’re here?”
“Me, indeed!”
“Very well. Then let’s go to the steamer.”
Fogg, Aouda, and Passepartout hurried through the theater and out into the street.
Behind them came the furious Batulcar.
“You’ve ruined my pyramid!” he shouted. “You must pay for the damage!”
Phileas Fogg calmly pulled out a handful of banknotes and handed them to him.
That settled the matter.
At half past six, exactly when the ship was due to depart, Fogg and Aouda boarded the American steamer.
Passepartout followed close behind.
In his excitement, he had forgotten to remove his ridiculous wings.
And the six-foot-long nose was still attached to his face.