While I was in Holland I came across an interesting couple whom I speedily classified in my own mind. One was a dark young man. He had a peculiar accent. He told me he was an Englishman from Northampton. Perhaps he was. He said the reason he wasn't fighting for his country was because he was too fat. Perhaps he was. The other young man said he was American. Perhaps he was. He had red hair and an American accent. He had lived in Germany a great deal in his childhood. All went well until the red-haired man made the following curious slip. When I was describing the way the Germans in Antwerp fled towards the sausage, he said, "How they will roar when I tell them that in Berlin!" Swiftly he corrected himself. "In New York, I mean!" he said. But a couple of hours later the Englishman left suddenly for London, and the American left for Antwerp. As I had happened to mention that I had left my baggage in Antwerp, I could quite imagine it being overhauled by the Germans there, at the instigation of the red-haired young gentleman with the pronounced American accent. A rough estimate of the cost to the Dutch Government of maintaining the refugees works out at something like £85,000 a week. This, of course, is quite irrespective of the boundless private hospitality which is being dispensed with the utmost generosity on every hand in Rotterdam, Haarlem, Flushing, Bergen-op-Zoom, Maasstricht, Rossendal, Delft, and innumerable other towns and villages. Some of the military families on their meagre pay must find the call on them a severe strain, but one never hears of complaints on this score, and in nine cases out of ten they refuse absolutely to accept payment for board and lodging, though many of the refugees are eager to pay for their food and shelter. "We can't make money out of them!" is what the Dutch say. A new reading this, of the famous couplet of a century ago:-- In matters of this kind the fault of the Dutch, Was giving too little and asking too much. CHAPTER XLVIII FRENCH COOKING IN WAR TIME There is no more Belgium to go to. So I am in France now. But War-Correspondents are not wanted here. They are driven out wherever discovered. I shall not stay long. All my time is taken up in running about getting papers; my bag is getting out of shape; it bulges with the Laisser Passers, and Sauf Conduits that one has to fight so hard to get. However, to be among French-speaking people again is a great joy. And to-day in Dunkirk it has refreshed and consoled me greatly to see Madame Piers cooking. The old Frenchwoman moved about her tiny kitchen,--her infinitesimally tiny kitchen,--and I watched her from my point of observation, seated on a tiny chair, at a tiny table, squeezed up into a tiny corner. It really was the smallest kitchen I'd ever seen, No, you couldn't have swung a cat in it--you really couldn't.