Meanwhile he went to the Club House by the Lea most evenings. That, too, he liked. He had a gift which Datcherd had detected in him, the gift of getting on well with all sorts of people, irrespective of their incomes, breeding, social status, intelligence, or respectability. He did not, like Arnold, rule out the unintelligent, the respectable, the commonplace; nor, like Datcherd, the orthodoxly religious; nor, as Jane did, without knowing it, the vulgar; nor, like many delightful and companionable and well-bred people, the uneducated, those whom we, comprehensively and rightly, call the poor--rightly, because, though poverty may seem the merest superficial and insignificant attribute of the completed product, it is also the original, fundamental cause of all the severing differences. Molly Bellairs thought Eddy would have made a splendid clergyman, a better one than his father, who was unlimitedly kind, but ill at ease, and talked above poor people’s heads. Eddy, with less grip of theological problems, had a surer hold of points of view, and apprehended the least witty of jokes, the least pathetic of quarrels, the least picturesque of emotions. Hence he was popular. He found that the sort of lectures Datcherd’s clubs were used to expect were largely on subjects like the Minimum Wage, Capitalism versus Industrialism, Organised Labour, the Eight Hours Day, Poor Law Reform, the Endowment of Mothers, Co-partnership, and such; all very interesting and profitable if well treated. So Eddy wrote to Bob Traherne, the second curate at St. Gregory’s, to ask him to give one. Traherne replied that he would, if Eddy liked, give a course of six. He proceeded to do so, and as he was a good, concise, and pungent speaker, drew large audiences and was immensely popular. At the end of his lecture he sold penny tracts by Church Socialists; really sold them, in large numbers. After his third lecture, which was on the Minimum Wage, he said he would be glad to receive the names of any persons who would like to join the Church Socialist League, the most effective society he knew of for furthering these objects. He received seven forthwith, and six more after the next. Protests reached Eddy from a disturbed secretary, a pale, red-haired young man, loyal to Datcherd’s spirit. “It’s not what Mr. Datcherd would like, Mr. Oliver.” Eddy said, “Why on earth shouldn’t he? He likes the men to be Socialists, doesn’t he?” “Not that sort, he doesn’t. At least, he wouldn’t. He likes them to think for themselves, not to be tied up with the Church.” “Well, they are thinking for themselves. He wouldn’t like them to be tied up to his beliefs either, surely. I feel sure it’s all right, Pollard. Anyhow, I can’t stop them joining the League if they want to, can I?” “We ought to stop the Reverend Traherne that’s where it is. He’d talk the head off an elephant. He gets a hold of them, and abuses it. It isn’t right, and it isn’t fair, nor what Mr. Datcherd would like in the Club.”