“ Scusami,” he said pleasantly, “ ma lei scherza? The fare cannot be one thousand lire.”
“ Mille lire,” said the driver obdurately. “It is the legal fare.” He waved his whip in the direction of three or four other unemployed carrozze parked expectantly in the shade of the Arch of Constantine. “Ask any other driver,” he suggested boldly.
“I prefer a more impartial witness,” said the Saint, with imperturbable good humor.
He reached out for the blanket that was neatly draped over the seat beside the driver, and flipped it back with a slight flourish. It disclosed a conventional taxi-meter which would have been in plain sight of the passenger seat if the blanket had not been so carefully arranged to hide it. Simon’s pointing finger drew the girl’s eyes to the figures on it.
“One hundred and ninety lire,” he said. “I’d give him exactly that, and forget the tip. It may teach him a lesson — although I doubt it.”
The coachman’s unblushing expostulations, accompanied by some scandalous reflections on their ancestry and probable relationship, followed them as the Saint drew her tactfully through the arches and out of earshot.
“All the carriages in Rome have meters. Just like a taxi,” he explained easily. “But there isn’t one of them that doesn’t have a blanket artistically draped over it, so that you’d never think it was there unless you knew about it. The driver can’t lose, and with the average tourist he usually wins. It’s brought the country almost as many dollars as the Marshall Plan.”
“I’m the original innocent,” she said ruefully. “This is my first trip abroad. Do you live here? You speak Italian as if you did.”
“No, but I’ve been around.”
A seedy-looking character wearing the typical emblem of his fraternity, a two-days growth of beard, sidled up to them.