- Fog buys a hot-air balloon for his use.
- Sullivan is in Rowan's office, demanding that Fog be arrested as quickly as possible. When Rowan says nothing can be done while Fog is in international waters, Sullivan says the police in San Francisco (the travellers' next scheduled stop on their journey) should be cabled and ordered to arrest Fog. But Rowan tells Sullivan that, since they are a former British colony, the Americans are sensitive about their independence, so it would be undiplomatic to give them orders.
Meanwhile, Fog and his party are due to reach San Francisco the next day. They are currently two days ahead of schedule and, if things continue to go well, will be able to complete their journey within the eighty-day time limit. But Transfer, determined as always to stop them, heads up on deck, where he throws burning lanterns at the General Grant's masts, setting them ablaze. However, Dix and Bully happen to be sleeping on the deck. Woken by the fire, Dix rouses Bully, then tells him they have to warn everyone. The two detectives hurry down to the dining room, where Dix, after struggling to speak for a few seconds, tells the captain the ship is on fire.
Up on deck, the ship's crew and Rigodon fight the fire by scooping buckets of water out of the ocean and throwing them at the flames. But though the ship itself is saved, the sails are badly damaged which, combined with the fact that the coal supply is almost exhausted, means the General Grant is unable to reach San Francisco. As a result, the travellers are forced to make another unscheduled stop, this time in Mexico, and it will take at least a week for the ship's sails to be repaired.
The travellers go to a local tavern for lunch. As they sit round the table, they discuss what they should do next. They are currently 470 miles from San Francisco and must find a way of getting there within twenty-four hours. Tico, looking out the window at some pigeons, says the travellers would be in San Francisco by now if they could fly.
Alerted by a commotion outside, Fog and the others investigate, finding that a hot-air balloon is on a collision course with the General Grant. The balloon ends up caught in the ship's mast, with the pilot (a Spanish dog named Manolo Perez) dangling from the basket by a rope around his leg. Rigodon frees Perez, who later tells the travellers that he was trying to set a new speed record for travelling from Mexico to San Francisco by balloon. Hearing this, Fog asks him if he will sell the balloon, but Perez says it can't be flown while it is torn to pieces and can't be mended without a specific kind of cloth. Luckily, he means sailcloth which, with the General Grant's sails under repair, is currently plentiful.
Once the travellers have been supplied with the sailcloth they need, Romy sets to work repairing the balloon in her cabin. Meanwhile, Perez advises Fog on how to fly the balloon. At this point, it emerges that Perez crashed because he ran out of alcohol to use as fuel. Fog tells Rigodon to go and buy some and Rigodon heads back to the tavern, where he tells the astonished owner that he wishes to purchase all the tavern's strongest tequila. By the time Rigodon returns to the ship, the potent fumes given off by the tequila have made him light-headed and he barely has time to put the bottles down before passing out.
Later, the General Grant's crew use the last of the ship's coal supply to stoke the boilers in order to inflate the now repaired balloon. But as the balloon takes off, Fog notices that it is not going up very far and Tico notices that the captain is trying to attract the travellers' attention. Looking down, Fog and the others discover Dix and Bully in a small basket which they have attached to the main basket with a rope. Dix, who has a new plan to gain Fog's confidence, says he and Bully have business in San Francisco, so they assumed Fog wouldn't mind taking them along. When Tico asks if Dix and Bully should be cut loose as they may make the balloon too heavy, Fog has Rigodon turn up the burner to compensate for the extra weight. As the balloon sails towards the American border, Bully complains of feeling air-sick and soon finds that travelling by balloon is worse than travelling by ship.
Meanwhile, Transfer has tried to follow Fog and his party in a balloon he made using sheets he stole from someone's washing line, only to be thwarted when a flock of crows landed on his balloon and pecked holes in it. He is now galloping towards the border on horseback.
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