This last brings us back again to the subject of clothes and serves to remind me that, contrary to a belief prevalent on this side of the water, good clothes cost as much abroad as they cost here.  In England a man may buy gloves and certain substantial articles of haberdashery in silk and linen and wool at a much lower figure than in America; and in Italy he will find crocheted handbags and bead necklaces are to be had cheaper than at home—­provided, of course, he cares for such things as crocheted handbags and bead necklaces.  Handmade laces and embroideries and sundry other feminine fripperies, so women tell me, are moderately priced on the Continent, if so be the tourist-purchaser steers clear of the more fashionable shops and chases the elusive bargain down a back street; but, quality considered, other things cost as much in Europe as they cost here—­and frequently they cost more.  If you buy at the shopkeeper’s first price he has a secret contempt for you; if you haggle him down to a reasonably fair valuation—­say about twice the amount a native would pay for the same thing—­he has a half-concealed contempt for you; if you refuse to trade at any price he has an open contempt for you; and in any event he dislikes you because you are an American.  So there you are.  No matter how the transaction turns out you have his contempt; it is the only thing he parts with at cost.

It is true that you may buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in London; so also may you buy a suit of clothes for ten dollars in any American city, but the reasonably affluent American doesn’t buy ten-dollar suits at home.  He saves himself up to indulge in that form of idiocy abroad.  In Paris or Rome you may get a five-course dinner with wine for forty cents; so you may in certain quarters of New York; but in either place the man who can afford to pay more for his dinner will find it to his ultimate well-being to do so.  Simply because a boarding house in France or Italy is known as a pension doesn’t keep it from being a boarding house —­and a pretty average bad one, as I have been informed by misguided Americans who tried living at a pension, and afterwards put in a good deal of their spare time regretting it.

Altogether, looking back on my own experiences, I can at this time of writing think of but two common commodities which, when grade is taken into the equation, are found to be radically cheaper in Europe than in America—­these two things being taxicabs and counts.  For their cleanliness and smartness of aspect, and their reasonableness of meter-fare, taxicabs all over Europe are a constant joy to the traveling American.  And, though in the United States counts are so costly that only the marriageable daughters of the very wealthy may afford to buy them—­and even then, as the count calendars attest, have the utmost difficulty in keeping them after they are bought—­in Continental Europe anywhere one may for a moderate price hire a true-born count to do almost any small job, from guiding one through an art gallery to waiting on one at the table.  Counts make indifferent guides, but are middling fair waiters.