“I don’t see,” he added, “that it can matter very much what opinions one has, if any, about party politics, for instance.” Eddy said, “No, you wouldn’t see it, of course, because you’re a poet. I’m not.” “You’d better become one,” said Billy, “if it would solve your difficulties. It’s very little trouble indeed really, you know. Anyone can be a poet; in fact, practically all Cambridge people are, except you; I can’t imagine why you’re not. It’s really rather a refreshing change; only I should think it often leads people to mistake you for an Oxford man, which must be rather distressing for you. Now I’m going to bed. Hadn’t you better, too?” But Eddy had something to do before he went to bed. By the grey light that came through the open window of the sitting-room, he found a pack of cards, and sat down to decide his opinions. First he wrote a list of all the societies he belonged to; they filled a sheet of note-paper. Then he went through them, coupling each two which, he had discovered, struck the ordinary person as incompatible; then, if he had no preference for either of the two, he cut. He cut, for instance, between the League of Young Liberals and the Primrose League. The Young Liberals had it. “Molly will be a little disappointed in me,” he murmured, and crossed off the Primrose League from his list. “And I expect it would be generally thought that I ought to cross off the Tariff Reform League, too.” He did so, then proceeded to weigh the Young Liberals against all the Socialist societies he belonged to (such as the Anti-sweating League, the National Service League, the Eugenics Society, and many others), for even he could see that these two ways of thought did not go well together. He might possibly have been a Socialist and a Primrose Leaguer, but he could not, as the world looks at such things, be a Socialist and a Liberal. He chose to be a Socialist, believing that that was the way, at the moment, to get most done. “Very good,” he commented, writing it down. “A bigoted Socialist. That will have the advantage that Traherne will let me help with the clubs. Now for the Church.” The Church question also he decided without recourse to chance. As he meant to continue to belong to the Church of England, he crossed off from the list the Free Thought League and the Theosophist Society. It remained that he should choose between the various Church societies he belonged to, such as the Church Progress Society (High and Modernist), the E. C. U. (High and not Modernist), the Liberal Churchmen’s League (Broad), and the Evangelical Affiance (Low). Of these he selected that system of thought that seemed to him to go most suitably with the Socialism he was already pledged to; he would be a bigoted High Church Modernist, and hate Broad Churchmen, Evangelicals, Anglican Individualists, Ultramontane Romans, Atheists, and (particularly) German Liberal Protestants. “Father will be disappointed in me, I’m afraid,” he reflected.