The Argo Goes West

22, Creeping whirlpool, part 2

The bell rang and Mrs. Robinson opened the door to find a young man with white teeth standing in the sunlight. His face resembled a weasel. He was wearing a shabby suit and had a necktie tied tightly around his thick neck. "Good afternoon, ma'am." said the man, picking up his flat pork pie hat. His moustache was sparse, and although he might have wanted to look like a trustworthy gentleman, it made him look like an unreliable youth. However, it tickled Mrs. Robinson's maternal instinct.

"What?" she called out to the young man like a mother.

"My name is Braddock, John Braddock. MW Pearson Company. I'd like to talk to you about our newest product." said the man, holding out a bottled drink. The man was a door-to-door salesman. These days, everyone buys from the Sears or Belknap catalogs, and it was rare for a salesman to come to the outskirts of town like this.

"Coca-Cola?" asked Mrs. Robinson.

"No, no," the young man shook his head. "Please read the label carefully."

The young man brought the label closer to Mrs. Robinson's eyes. NECTOR was written on the label.

"Nectar?"

"Yes ma'am"

The label had a poor reproduction of Botticelli's famous painting of Venus.

"Have you ever heard the word nectar?"

"I've heard of it, what was it?" Mrs. Robinson asked.

"Nectar is an immortal liquor that the gods of ancient Greece drank. Our nectar cannot guarantee immortality, but it is highly regarded in the medical world as a health tonic drink." Then the young man fluently praised the new product Nectar by a nonexistent (but likely) university professor. To be honest, Mrs. Robinson didn't care about the story, but she was fascinated by the young man's enthusiastic expression and manner of speaking, and listened in silence. Mrs. Robinson, who had a lot of life experience, thought that the young man seemed confident, but inwardly anxious and timid. His contradiction was loved by Mrs. Robinson. She had thought that she would never buy it, but gradually she began to change her mind.

"Would you like one?"

By the time the young man asked her that question, she was ready to buy it. It was shady and expensive, but she wanted to see the young man's happy face. Mrs. Robinson said with a smile, "Yes, I will."

John Braddock put the money she gave him in his pocket and let out a sigh of relief. Then he retightened his loose tie. that was the first sale of the day. It sold only occasionally, but considering the cost, it was quite profitable just to sell one. If it sold once out of a hundred, there was no loss. John Braddock was never greedy, and thought that as long as he lived through the day he would be fine. From his experience, being greedy increases the risk of being arrested. That was a lesson of life for young con man John Braddock.

In the command car of Car 4, the phone rang.

"This is the command room."

A young Sergeant Jerry Romolo, still looking like a boy, picked up the phone.

"This is car No. 8." It was from a scout manning an open wagon with a battery on board. "Signal confirmation on the left front."

"Roger that."

Romolo hung up and informed Captain Harris. He looked out the left window with his vice-captain, Roberts. A light was flickering on the distant hills. Morse code using flashes of sunlight reflected by a mirror. Roberts responds by reflecting a portable mirror. The light from the hill rushed across the ground, illuminating something ahead.

Harris looked at it through binoculars and said,

"...It's a whirlpool."

Roberts countered.

"A whirlpool? This is not the sea."

"I know, but it's a whirlpool, and it's moving. It's heading towards us."

Pete Stryker, a pilot, calculated the movement of the whirlpool with a chronograph in hand. "...Currently moving at about 20 miles per hour at a point about 3 miles away."

"What would happen if the Argo were to run at its current speed?" Harris asked, but Stryker had already started to do the math. It didn't take long because it was a problem that could be solved using trigonometric functions.

"No problem. The Argo will pass before the whirlpool arrives.

"I think it's fine to proceed as it is. But just in case, let's instruct the locomotive to accelerate."

"Yes, sir."

Just as Roberts had given instructions to the locomotives on the phone, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt entered from car No. 3, accompanied by Miss Craig.

"What happened?"

"It looks like an attack"

"What?"

"This is whirlpool."

"Whirlpool? What is whirlpool?"

"Excuse me, it's urgent," Harris declined, calling all the cars and ordering them to be on standby in case of unforeseen circumstances.