I had not always the fine sense of being booty
which I had one day on coming out of a church and blundering toward the
wrong cab. Then the driver whom I had left waiting at the door seized me
from the very cab of an unjust rival with the indignant cry, "E roba
mia!" (He's my stuff!). It was not quite the phrase I would have chosen,
but I had no quarrel, generally speaking, with the cabmen of Rome. To be
sure, they have not a rubber tire among them, and their dress leaves
much to be desired in professional uniformity. Not one of them looks
like a cabman, but many of them in pict-uresqueness of hats and coats
look like brigands. I think they would each prefer to have a fur-lined
overcoat, which the Roman of any class likes to wear well into the
spring; but they mostly content themselves with an Astrakhan collar,
more or less mangy. For the rest, some of them will point out the
objects of interest as you pass, and they are proud to do so; they are
not extortionate, and, if you overpay them ever so little (which is
quite worth while), they will not stand upon a matter of lawful fare.
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