During the changes which your propositions will inevitably undergo in the course of negotiations, he may, if you are not careful, get the better of you in the deal. That also is his vanity; a vanity to guard against without ever committing the solecism of a too bluntly apparent discovery of his aim. If he finds you always politely firm as a gentleman should be, you will have gained his friendship and respect—often valuable assets even if your original business should not go through. In a word, in Argentina, as elsewhere, one must respect the native customs and conventionalities unless one wishes to encounter opposition. And the _vis inertia_ of the opposition which an Argentine can and does offer to persons and ideas with which he is out of sympathy is invincible. Such persons or schemes will be remitted by him to a “Mañana” which never comes. That is the true inward meaning in Argentina of mañana; a polite excuse for temporarily or definitely postponing matters which have not made a favourable impression. It is not, as is so often thought, a mere lazy pretext for not doing to-day anything that possibly can be put off till to-morrow. The Argentine is not in the least lazy. On the contrary, he has reserve stores of latent energy the sudden calling into action of which, when he considers such action called for, is apt to astonish those who have formed superficial and hasty judgments on his nature. It would seem trite to say that the first step to success in a country is intelligent study of the inhabitants were it not so constantly evident that new arrivals, who really ought to know better, seem to bring with them the idea that along with their business, whatever it may be, they have brought a mission to mould Argentine methods on the latest European or North American forms, forms which are the outcome of entirely different racial and climatic conditions. Thus, they, at the outset, impose upon themselves the Sisyphus task of rolling their pet stones up the hill of customs which really are the outcome of the racial and physical necessities of the people and country. You cannot grow wheat in a swamp nor make much of a retriever out of a pointer, but the swamp may yield good rice and a pointer may be a very good dog in his way. The sooner an immigrant, be he financier or farmer, realizes such facts the better for his success on the River Plate or elsewhere. By not doing so he fails in his enterprise and blames the failure on to the people or country to which he took projects predoomed only by his own lack of intelligent adaptability.