A major football sports competition (between Florida and Chicago) was being held in Baltimore, attended by both President Fowler and Cabot, as Ryan frantically rode in a helicopter to the Baltimore docks and attempted to warn them of the nuclear bomb's presence in the city.On a whim and in front of his wife, he proposed to purchase Varinia (due to his liking her "spirit") for 2,000 sesterces, and Batiatus agreed to have his steward escort her to Rome the next day.She delivered her famous line toward the naive and incompetent small-town attorney Ned Racine:"Matty":You're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man.During the treasurer's report, the financially-strapped members of the opera expect him to pay the opera's annual deficit of $180,000.