By this time the Club was well under way; and from that time forth its secretary kept my off-hours well supplied with business.

He reported the Club's discussions of my books with laborious fullness, and did his work with great spirit and ability.
As a, rule, he synopsized; but when a speech was especially brilliant, he short-handed it and gave me the best passages from it, written out.
There were five speakers whom he particularly favored in that way: Palmer, Forbes, Naylor, Norris, and Calder.

Palmer and Forbes could never get through a speech without attacking each other, and each in his own way was formidably effective--Palmer in virile and eloquent abuse, Forbes in courtly and elegant but scalding satire.

I could always tell which of them was talking without looking for his name.

Naylor had a polished style and a happy knack at felicitous metaphor; Norris's style was wholly without ornament, but enviably compact, lucid, and strong.
But after all, Calder was the gem.