‘You wouldn’t like it at all,’ said Carry; ’because you are an aristocrat.  I don’t mean that it would be your fault.’

‘Why should that prevent my liking it even if I were an aristocrat?’

’One half of the people would run after you, and the other half would run away from you,’ said Carry.

’Then I’d take to the people who ran after me, and would not regard the others.’

’That’s all very well but you wouldn’t like it.  And then you would become unfair to what you saw.  When some of our speechifying people talked to you about our institutions through their noses, you would think that the institutions themselves must be bad.  And we have nothing to show except our institutions.’

’What are American institutions? asked Mr Glascock.

’Everything is an institution.  Having iced water to drink in every room of the house is an institution.  Having hospitals in every town is an institution.  Travelling altogether in one class of railway cars is an institution.  Saying sir, is an institution.  Teaching all the children mathematics is an institution.  Plenty of food is an institution.  Getting drunk is an institution in a great many towns.  Lecturing is an institution.  There are plenty of them, and some are very good but you wouldn’t like it.’

‘At any rate, I’ll go and see,’ said Mr Glascock.

‘If you do, I hope we may be at home,’ said Miss Spalding.

Mr Spalding, in the mean time, with the assistance of his countryman, the man of taste, was endeavouring to explain a certain point in American politics to the count.  As, in doing this, they called upon Mr Gore to translate every speech they made into Italian, and as Mr Gore had never offered his services as an interpreter, and as the Italian did not quite catch the subtle meanings of the Americans in Mr Gore’s Tuscan version, and did not in the least wish to understand the things that were explained to him, Mr Gore and the Italian began to think that the two Americans were bores.  ‘The truth is, Mr Spalding,’ said Mr Gore, ’I’ve got such a cold in my head, that I don’t think I can explain it any more.’  Then Livy Spalding laughed aloud, and the two American gentlemen began to eat their dinner.  ’It sounds ridiculous, don’t it?’ said Mr Gore, in a whisper.

‘I ought not to have laughed, I know,’ said Livy.

’The very best thing you could have done.  I shan’t be troubled any more now.  The fact is, I know just nine words of Italian.  Now there is a difficulty in having to explain the whole theory of American politics to an Italian, who doesn’t want to know anything about it, with so very small a repertory of words at one’s command.’

‘How well you did it!’

’Too well.  I felt that.  So well that, unless I had stopped it, I shouldn’t have been able to say a word to you all through dinner.  Your laughter clenched it, and Buonarosci and I will be grateful to you for ever.’