“No,” Lind said, “Lord Evelyn is not yet an officer.  He is only a Companion in the third degree, like yourself.”

“A what?”

“A Companion in the third degree.  Surely you read the document that you signed?”

It was still lying on the table before him.  He took it up; yes, he certainly was so designated there.  Yet he could not remember seeing the phrase, though he had, before signing, read every word twice over.

“And now, Mr. Brand,” his companion said, seating himself at the other side of the table, “when you have got over your surprise that there should be no ceremony, it will become my duty to give you some idea—­some rough idea—­of the mechanism and aims of our association, and to show you in what measure we are allied with other societies.  The details you will become acquainted with by-and-by; that will be a labor of time.  And you know, of course, or you have guessed, that there are no mysteries to be revealed to you, no profound religious truths to be communicated, no dogmas to be accepted.  I am afraid we are very degenerate descendants of the Mystics, and the Illuminati, and all the rest of them; we have become prosaic; our wants are sadly material.  And yet we have our dreams and aspirations, too; and the virtues that we exact—­obedience, temperance, faith, self-sacrifice—­are not ignoble.  Meanwhile, to begin.  I think you may prepare yourself to be astonished.”

But astonishment was no word for the emotion experienced by the newly admitted member when Ferdinand Lind proceeded to give him, with careful facts and sober computations, some rough outline of the extent and power of this intricate and far-reaching organization.  Hitherto the word “International” had with him been associated with the ridiculous fiasco at Geneva; but here was something, not calling itself international, which aimed at nothing less than knitting together the multitudes of the nations, not only in Europe, but in the English and French and German speaking territories beyond the seas, in a solemn league—­a league for self-protection and mutual understanding, for the preservation of international peace, the spread of knowledge, the outbraving of tyranny, the defiance of religious intolerance, the relief of the oppressed, the help of the poor, and the sick, and the weak.  This was no cutthroat conspiracy or wild scheme of confiscation and plunder; but a design for the establishment of wide and beneficent law—­a law which should protect, not the ambition of kings, not the pride of armies, not the revenues of priests, but the rights and the liberties of those who were “darkening in labor and pain.”  And this message, that could go forth alike to the Camorristi and the Nihilists; to the Free Masons and the Good Templars; to the Trades-unionists and the Knights of Labor—­to all those masses of men moved by the spirit of co-operation—­“See, brothers, what we have to show you.  Some of you are aiming at chaos and perdition; others putting