Around the World in Seventy-Two Days, page 1 by Nellie Bly
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ables. Anxiously I sat down and went over them and if I had found the elixir of life I should not have felt better than I did when I conceived a hope that a tour of the world might be made in even less than eighty days.
I approached my editor rather timidly on the subject. I was afraid that he would think the idea too wild and visionary.
"Have you any ideas?" he asked, as I sat down by his desk.
"One," I answered quietly.
He sat toying with his pens, waiting for me to continue, so I blurted out:
"I want to go around the world!"
"Well?" he said, inquiringly looking up with a faint smile in his kind eyes.
"I want to go around in eighty days or less. I think I can beat Phileas Fogg's record. May I try it?"
To my dismay he told me that in the office they had thought of this same idea before and the intention was to send a man. However he offered me the consolation that he would favor my going, and then we went to talk with the business manager about it.
"It is impossible for you to do it," was the terrible verdict. "In the first place you are a woman and would need a protector, and even if it were possible for you to travel alone you would need to carry so much baggage that it would detain you in making rapid changes. Besides you speak nothing but English, so there is no use talking about it; no one but a man can do this."
"Very well," I said angrily, "Start the man, and I'll start the same day for some other newspaper and beat him."
"I believe you would," he said slowly. I would not say that this had any influence on their decision, but I do know that before we parted I was made happy by the promise that if any one was commissioned to make the trip, I should be that one.
After I had made my arrangements to go, other important projects for gathering news came up, and this rather visionary idea was put aside for a while.
One cold, wet evening, a year after this discussion, I received a little note asking me to come to the office