After the ladies went there was rather a bad half hour for Mr Glascock.  He was button-holed by the minister, and found it oppressive before he was enabled to escape into the drawing-room.  ‘Mr Glascock,’ said the minister, ’an English gentleman, sir, like you, who has the privilege of an hereditary seat in your parliament’—­Mr Glascock was not quite sure whether he were being accused of having an hereditary seat in the House of Commons, but he would not stop to correct any possible error on that point—­’and who has been born to all the gifts of fortune, rank, and social eminence, should never think that his education is complete till he has visited our great cities in the west.’  Mr Glascock hinted that he by no means conceived his education to be complete; but the minister went on without attending to this.  ’Till you have seen, sir, what men can do who are placed upon the earth with all God’s gifts of free intelligence, free air, and a free soil, but without any of those other good things which we are accustomed to call the gifts of fortune, you can never become aware of the infinite ingenuity of man.’  There had been much said before, but just at this moment Mr Gore and the American left the room, and the Italian followed them briskly.  Mr Glascock at once made a decided attempt to bolt; but the minister was on the alert, and was too quick for him.  And he was by no means ashamed of what he was doing.  He had got his guest by the coat, and openly declared his intention of holding him.  ‘Let me keep you for a few minutes, sir,’ said he, ’while I dilate on this point in one direction.  In the drawing-room female spells are too potent for us male orators.  In going among us, Mr Glascock, you must not look for luxury or refinement, for you will find them not.  Nor must you hope to encounter the highest order of erudition.  The lofty summits of acquired knowledge tower in your country with an altitude we have not reached yet.’  ’It’s very good of you to say so,’ said Mr Glascock.  ’No, sir.  In our new country and in our new cities we still lack the luxurious perfection of fastidious civilisation.  But, sir, regard our level.  That’s what I say to every unprejudiced Britisher that comes among us; look at our level.  And when you have looked at our level, I think that you will confess that we live on the highest table-land that the world has yet afforded to mankind.  You follow my meaning, Mr Glascock?’ Mr Glascock was not sure that he did, but the minister went on to make that meaning clear.  ’It is the multitude that with us is educated.  Go into their houses, sir, and see how they thumb their books.  Look at the domestic correspondence of our helps and servants, and see how they write and spell.  We haven’t got the mountains, sir, but our table-lands are the highest on which the bright sun of our Almighty God has as yet shone with its illuminating splendour in this improving world of ours!  It is because we are a young people, sir with nothing as yet near to us of the decrepitude of age.  The weakness of age, sir, is the penalty paid by the folly of youth.  We are not so wise, sir, but what we too shall suffer from its effects as years roll over our heads.’  There was a great deal more, but at last Mr Glascock did escape into the drawing-room.