I was not long in discovering that the guild was more than the eccentric imagination of a Quartier Latin poet. To begin with, I found that similar societies, bearing names of an equally fantastic nature, had simultaneously come into existence in London, Berlin, New York, and Chicago, and that all these bodies were in correspondence with one another. I found, further, that the members of the Parisian society were in communication with a retired French diplomatist of singular character, a man who had returned from a ten years’ sojourn in Pekin, steeped to the lips in Chinese ideas, and a professed follower of Khung the Master, or Confucius, as he is called in the West. I ascertained that the guild had its headquarters in the studio of a rising artist of the Mystic school, that it held meetings from time to time, of which minutes were kept, and in the record of its proceedings there appeared references to certain Chinese spirits of the underworld, and entries which, in veiled language, hinted at rites having been practised of a nature which could only be described as sorcery. I had no very definite object in acquiring this information, but I was led on by a vague idea that it might be useful to me at some future time. During the storm of indignation aroused in Europe by the Boxer massacres, nothing more was heard of the _Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_, which seemed to have sunk out of existence. I had ceased to think about it, when one day, shortly after the conclusion of the peace negotiations, my secretary came in to ask me if I would receive a gentleman whose card he handed to me. I took the card, and read on it the name of M. Caramel-Bignaud. M. Bignaud was a young poet of distinction, whose verses, stamped with a delicate aloofness of their own, had attracted the attention of connoisseurs in the columns of _Gil Blas_. To me he possessed an interest of a different kind, for I had last read his name as president at the meetings of the _Company of the Joyous Peach Blossom_. ‘I will see this gentleman,’ I told my assistant. Partly surprised, partly gratified, by this proof that I had rightly gauged the importance of the guild, I waited with keen curiosity to hear what M. Bignaud had come to say to me. The poet entered and took the chair I pointed out to him without a word. Then, leaning back negligently and fixing his dark, sleepy eyes on mine, he began-- ‘I have come to ask you, M. V----, if you are willing to undertake a long journey--a very long journey--without receiving any information as to the business which awaits you at the end.’