“Oh, evidently the mainspring was broken when you charge so much,” I remarked.
“No, sir, the mainspring was not broken,” he replied.
“Then surely one of the jewels must have fallen out, or there was something to replace, to justify so heavy a charge.”
“No, none of the jewels was missing, but it was quite a difficult little job, and, besides, we do not like to repair watches,”—which was all the satisfaction I was able to secure for parting with eight pesos!
On mentioning my experience that afternoon to an Englishman of longer residence in the city, he remarked that these were the sort of things that never could happen to one after two or three years, because one soon discovered it was cheaper to buy, as you can, a good useful 5 peso American watch, and whenever it goes out of order, throw it away and buy another.
There is a perfectly reasonable explanation of this. Workmanship, artisan skill, labour of all sorts, are the commodities at highest premiums in Buenos Ayres. People are making their money, reaping fortunes, not from honest, productive workmanship and exercise of creative skill, as in North American and in other settled industrial countries, but merely from sale and exchange. The men who grow rich are the agents, the middle-men, and it is the middle-men who are taking back as quickly as they can from the wage-earners the high salaries which the latter can easily obtain but not so easily retain. The stationer, for instance, who sold me for ten pesos a mechanical pencil sharpener, which my office boy immediately broke by carelessly inserting the point of the pencil, charged five pesos to repair the little machine. His business was to sell at a profit what he had imported from Europe, but not to supply skill and labour to put anything right.
As rather an inveterate smoker, and one with a preference for cigars, I recall how disappointed I was to be told by the captain of the ship on which I sailed to the River Plate, that there was probably no place in the world where cigars were so bad or so expensive as in Buenos Ayres. I cherished for a time some faint hope that this was perhaps a sweeping generalisation founded on unfortunate experience, but I must bear witness to its general accuracy. The cigar shops are many of them most beautifully appointed, fitted up with a luxury rare even in London or New York. In not one of them is there a smokable cigar to be had at less than 60 centavos (roughly 25 cts.) and in order to enjoy something approximating to the pleasure of a fine Cuban cigar, which would sell in New York for 40 cts., you will have to disburse at least 3 pesos, or $1.25. It is a custom among the Argentines, who are notably abstemious, to invite a friend to smoke a cigar, under circumstances where an American or Englishman would ask him to “have a drink.” Often I have noticed at the tobacconist’s a gentleman taking in a friend to “stand” him a cigar, and seldom, if he is a gentleman who values his self-respect and reputation in the community, will he offer a friend anything less than a cigar that cost three pesos. It is naturally a biggish cigar, and it will certainly have a very wide band, with a good splash of gilt on it, and it will probably smoke not quite so well as a 25-ct. cigar sold in Broadway. So far as I could discover, the moist atmosphere deteriorates the imported Havannas. Locally made imitations are concocted from Brazilian tobacco, packed up in disused Havanna boxes and hawked among the offices by men who pretend to have smuggled them into the country without paying duty. Admirably “faked” as to outward appearance—for the art of falsification is one of the few local industries that flourish in Buenos Ayres—these cigars can deceive no one after the first puff, but thousands of boxes are annually sold to ready buyers, who, unable to afford the shop prices, at least make a pretence of smoking Havannas, though they know quite well they are being fobbed off with cheap Brazilian tobacco. Cigars are sold at all sorts of prices, from 20 centavos upwards, and occasionally it is possible to smoke one sold at 50 centavos, as I had frequently to do at my hotel, where I was charged one peso for a cigar, on the band of which 50 centavos was printed. Representing to the manager that 42 cents seemed a good deal to pay for a 21-cent cigar, the value of which in New York would not have exceeded ten cents, he blandly assured me that they always charged a peso for a 50 centavo cigar in the hotel!
Hotel prices are naturally in excess of all shop prices in Buenos Ayres, as elsewhere, and of course there are degrees even among the hotels. At one hotel where some of the modern comforts common to the better class of hotels in London or New York may be obtained, the tariff is so formidable that even an Argentine millionaire whose acquaintance I made, and who had been making the hotel his headquarters for a year or two instead of living in a town house, told me that he would have to quit, as he felt it was little short of sinful to pay the weekly bill with which he was presented. Another gentleman, the manager of a very large industrial concern in England, whose market is mainly in the Argentine, was spending several months in Buenos Ayres during my stay, and left the palatial hotel in question to come to the more modest establishment where we two Gringos put up. In talking over the relative charges with me, he said that while we had to pay enough in all conscience for what we received (and for which no praying could have made us “truly thankful”!), there was at least the difference between paying excessively for very common fare and having your money literally “taken away from you.” Yet the hotel in question, thanks to the extraordinary difficulty of obtaining competent assistants at reasonable wages, and to the famine prices which must be paid for every domestic commodity, as well as the immense capital that has to be invested in steel frames, reinforced concrete, and furnishings, is no very profitable business for those who conduct it. I doubt if they could charge less than they do! This was often my experience when I came to inquire into what seemed altogether unreasonable prices: to find that those who seemed to be imposing on one were really asking no more than the circumstances warranted.
All the same, a knowledge of the economic conditions does not greatly help you to look with approval upon a charge of $2.35 for placing a bunch of about six roses and half-a-dozen other flowers in a bowl on your table at dinner when you are entertaining a couple of guests, especially if, as you happen to know for certain, the said flowers have been left over from a wedding celebration in the hotel the evening before. On several occasions this was the charge which appeared on our weekly bill for decorating our little table in the gorgeous manner described. Myself, having scant use for alcoholic beverages, my main expenses on liquids touched “soft drinks.” Certainly the prices were hard enough. I have retained some of our hotel bills as reminders. From these I extract the following interesting items: One bottle of San Pellegrino Water, 55 cts.; Salus Water, 70 cts.; Small Apollinaris, 35 cts.; Schweppe’s Soda, 58 cts.; Vichy, 55 cts.; Small Perrier, 35 cts. As most visitors make it a point never to drink the water of the town, and can easily dispose of several bottles of Perrier or Schweppe’s Soda per day during the hot weather, the reader can figure what proportions the weekly bill for mineral waters will reach, and it must be borne in mind that the figures given are those charged at a hotel of an extremely modest character. Nor would these prices appear so excessive if each bottle contained what was indicated on the label. There is no security that such is the case, and I know that many a time have I had to accept some local concoction put forth in the guise of an imported European mineral water.
I also find some notes as to alcoholic drinks in our hotel bills, which will give some notion of the casual expenses of entertaining friends. For a bottle of Guinness’ Stout, 45 cts.; for a glass of Tonic Water and Gin, 50 cts.; for a bottle of Chandon, $5.30; the same for a bottle of Veuve Clicquot; Chateau Lafitte, $3; and so on. It will be noticed that the disparity between American and Argentine prices in the matter of alcoholic drinks is less glaring than in the case of mineral waters. But I find an occasional item in these weekly bills which probably touches the high water mark of imposition. Under the heading of “Alcohol,” we were charged from time to time 75 cts. for a pint bottle of methylated spirits for use in a small spirit lamp!