It was about the end of the year 1534, while the reformer was still living at Antwerp in the house of Thomas Poyntz, when one day, dining with another merchant, he observed among the guests a tall young man of good appearance whom he did not know. 'He is a fellow-countryman,' said the master of the house, 'Mr. Harry Philips, a person of very agreeable manners.'[68] Tyndale drew near the stranger and was charmed with his conversation. After dinner, just as they were about to separate, he observed another person near Philips, whose countenance from being less open pleaded little in his favor. It was 'Gabriel, his servant,' he was told. Tyndale invited Philips to come and see him: the young layman accepted the invitation, and the candid reformer was so taken with him, that he could not pass a day without him—inviting him at one time to dinner, at another to supper. At length Philips became so necessary to him that he prevailed upon him, with Poyntz's consent, to come and live in the same house with him. For some time they had lost sight of Gabriel, and on Tyndale's asking what had become of him, he was informed that he had gone to Louvain, the centre of Roman clericalism in Belgium. When Tyndale and Philips were once lodged beneath the same roof, their intimacy increased: Tyndale had no secrets from his fellow-countryman. The latter spent hours in the library of the hellenist, who showed him his books and manuscripts, and conversed with him about his past and future labors, and the means that he possessed for circulating the New Testament throughout England. The translator of the Bible, all candor and simplicity, supposing no evil, thinking nothing but good of his neighbor, unbosomed himself to him like a child.