I want to make sure I'm interpreting the following sentence properly:
「三倍の代金を払ってコーヒーを買うくらいなら、水道の水を飲んでいた方がましだ」と言ったマンフレッドがもしもまだベルリンにいたら、また口{くち}喧{げん}嘩{か}になっていたかもしれない。
To give some context, in the previous sentence, the narrator remarks that it is regrettable that the main character, Mamoru, did not go to the expensive grocery store the day before since it was the only one that was open. In the sentence I'm attempting to understand, 「マンフレッド」refers to Manfred, ostensibly Mamoru's former lover.
Anyway, my initial rough translation was:
If Manfred -- who once said, "If you're paying three times the price for coffee, you ought to be drinking tap water" -- were still in Berlin, we probably would have gotten into another argument.
This immediately made no sense to me, but after thinking over it for awhile, it occurred to me that what it might actually mean is:
If Manfred -- who once remarked, "If the water is three times the price of a cup of coffee, you ought to be drinking it from the tap" -- were still in Berlin, we probably would've gotten into another argument.
The second sentence makes much more sense to me, but also implies that the author is potentially talking about the store selling expensive bottled water despite not saying that explicitly.
Any help clarifying the meaning would be appreciated. Thanks.