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.
Perhaps there were no horses left in the stalls--thanks to either Belgian foragers or to German--or, if there were horses, no driver would risk his hide on the open road among the German pack trains and rear guards.

At length we did find a tall, red-haired Walloon who said he would go anywhere on earth, and provide a team for the going, if we paid the price he asked.