This
little man, we learned, was the burgomaster, and this day he was being
held a prisoner and responsible for the good conduct of some fifty-odd
thousand of his fellow citizens. That night our host, a gross, silent
man in carpet slippers, told us the burgomaster was ill in bed at home.
"He suffers," explained our landlord in French, "from a crisis of the
nerves." The French language is an expressive language.
Then, coming a pace nearer, our landlord added a question in a cautious
whisper.
"Messieurs," he asked, "do you think it can be true, as my neighbors
tell me, that the United States President has ordered the Germans to get
out of our country?"
We shook our heads, and he went silently away in his carpet slippers;
and his broad Flemish face gave no hint of what corrosive thoughts he
may have had in his heart.
It was Wednesday morning when we entered Louvain. It was Saturday
morning when we left it. This last undertaking was preceded by
difficulties. As a preliminary to it we visited in turn all the stables
in Louvain where ordinarily horses and wheeled vehicles could be had for
hire.
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