"Yes," Samia interrupted him, "but the fare they collect now is rather small... Three liras is really a trifling sum for that ride... It must be no less than five liras, or the drivers' condition will remain as it is."
"Quite so," answered Michel Toma warmly, "and that was my idea from the very first. I wanted to establish a company at the airport whose meter fare would be no less than 460 piasters — for a small fare teaches the driver to steal... and other things besides... Meters must be made general in Beirut! The Directorate of Tourism and Summering bought seventy thousand Lebanese liras' worth of car meters in order to distribute them free of charge, but the drivers' syndicate refused flatly... until the Zakhour and Rebeiz companies came along and we began this organized work. I have no wish but that this method be followed, especially in front of the hotels, at the port and the airport, and in Ras Beirut, so that we may present an orderly face to the world and make travel easier. But do you know, ladies, that every metered car that stands in front of the hotels gets smashed?!"
"And how do you tolerate this?" cried Anna, Samia, and Linda together! "And why do you not act on this sound idea — and the Directorate of Tourism and Summering is the one responsible for that, in order to encourage tourism?..."
"No, it is not the one responsible," Toma replied with a sigh of regret; "its hands are shackled."
"To whom, then, shall we direct the accusation? To the government?" Linda Majdalani asked him...
"Yes, to the government," Anna answered her, "for if the gov
ernment laid down a strict law, everyone would follow it!!"
"But the important side of it, in my view," added Nadia Sabra, "is the bad conduct of the drivers and the harshness of their manners..."
"Yes, it is the 'etiquette' they lack," Charlotte agreed, "and it is handed down from generation to generation, and the road to it is not an easy one."
"There are two ways of acquiring it," Michel Toma concluded: "first, from the home and the school; and second, by way of force, firmness, and the law..."
"Let us return to the mazout question," said Anna. "The government and the Commissariat of Tourism promised to solve this question this year. What is your answer to that?"
Toma answered: "Last year we studied the mazout question and found that from the technical side it is very simple. The cause of that thick black cloud is that the mazout is not burned to the last drop... and that is because the driver opens the car's réglage to its fullest, using mazout heavily so that the car's small engine can carry its load. When we learned the cause, we bought the government a réglage machine that prevents drivers from tampering with their cars' engines. But tampering occurred at the garage the government set up for this task..."
"Are we to understand from this," said Anna, "that the solution is very easy, and that the government has only to make up its mind and act — so that we may have some peace..."
"And does the present government know of this solution and of the cause?" asked Nadia Sabra, the wife of the Minister of Works!
"Some time ago I was discussing this problem with my husband, and he mentioned to me that he would study it to find a way to solve it..."
"Its simple solution is that machine we bought," Toma affirmed, "and I should be very glad to inform His Excellency the Minister of it, so that we may settle that crisis once and for all..."
"There is a matter I should like to call your attention to," said Charlotte, "and that is the beaches — the plages. Compared with the plages of Europe, even in its poor countries, they are a farce. They are a disgrace to us — they meet neither sanitary nor moral standards."
"You are right, Mrs. Osseily; we know it, and we are working with all our strength to reach the rank to which we aspire. But do not forget that Lebanon has grown and expanded rapidly in these last years — no fewer than a million persons entered it this year — and its administration is still small and weak in proportion to its rapid growth. But, God willing, we shall soon reach what we are striving for..."
"God willing," Nadia Sabra agreed, "but I want to ask you about another problem that is important in my view. Last summer I wanted to spend the summer season with my family in a family hotel offering every convenience and the comfort of home, but I could not find one. Our hotels are either 'de luxe' hotels or third and fourth class. In every country of the world there are
hotels for families