All during the first day of our imprisonment we had nothing to eat, except the dainty “tea of bribery” at the session of the court of inquiry in the afternoon, and the only effect of that tea was to whet our already cutting appetites. So, having been returned from the session of court, we sat down on a rude bench in our dingy abode at the Montmedy prison camp to brood over our misfortune and to settle down for that course in Kultur. We were thoroughly blue, for the only joys in life during that day had been the facts that we had successfully lied to the German Intelligence Officer and so far we had not divulged any military information. And here is a point that I noticed all through Germany from the officers on down—with rare exceptions. A German will promise you anything in order to appear affable and pleasant. It is commonly done, and they get off with it for a certain time. From these continued observations of unfulfilled promises I formed a definition of “Kultur.” In my mind it is that superficial and subtle form of hypocrisy practised by the German race and commonly accepted by them as justifiable and necessary in their state of affairs, which permits of the affording of temporary satisfaction in meeting the emergency in hand by giving indiscriminate promises—which promises are never fulfilled nor intended to be fulfilled at the time of making; and which further permits and justifies the explanation of nonfulfillment of promises by the giving of more and similar empty and insincere promises. Our room was rather chilly, for in our absence the fire had gone out. With the wood we had coerced from the sergeant the orderly finally came in and built us a little fire. We used French economy, for we were quite sure that it was going to be cold before the night was over, with the limited covering they had given us. I was getting as hungry as the snake which sleeps all winter, or summer, whichever it is. So I put it up to the orderly, who politely told us he would bring our food at once. I am sure we waited a full hour and a half for that food and I was experiencing all sorts of sensations as to whether slow starvation was about to begin. I remembered reading that starving people were sometimes sustained by chewing shoe leather, so I was wondering how long my poor shoes would last at a ration of a square inch of leather to chew each day. This hunger was getting my goat. I had heard of walking off intoxication and seasickness so I decided to try walking off hunger.