As it happened, I found that night the first real friend I had encountered in all my traveling. When I knocked timidly on the door it was opened by a Belgian peasant, about fifty years of age. He asked me in Flemish what I wanted, but I shook my head and, pointing to my ears and mouth, intimated that I was deaf and dumb, and then I opened and closed my teeth several times to show him that I wanted food. He showed me inside and sat me at the table. He apparently lived alone, for his ill-furnished room had but one chair, and the plate and knife and fork he put before me seemed to be all he had. He brought me some cold potatoes and several slices of stale bread, and he warmed me some milk on a small oil-stove. I ate ravenously, and all the time I was engaged I knew that he was eying me closely. Before I was half through he came over to me, touched me on the shoulder, and, stooping over so that his lips almost touched my ear, he said, in broken English, "You are an Englishman--I know it--and you can hear and talk if you wish. Am I not right?" There was a smile on his face and a friendly attitude about him that told me instinctively that he could be trusted, and I replied, "You have guessed right--only I am an American, not an Englishman." He looked at me pityingly and filled my cup again with warm milk. His kindness and apparent willingness to help me almost overcame me, and I felt like warning him of the consequences he would suffer if the Huns discovered he had befriended me. I had heard that twenty Belgians had been shot for helping Belgians to escape into Holland, and I hated to think what might happen to this Good Samaritan if the Huns ever knew that he had helped an escaped American prisoner. After my meal was finished I told him in as simple language as I could command of some of the experiences I had gone through, and I outlined my future plans. "You will never be able to get to Holland," he declared, "without a passport. The nearer you get to the frontier the more German soldiers you will encounter, and without a passport you will be a marked man." I asked him to suggest a way by which I could overcome this difficulty. He thought for several moments and studied me closely all the time--perhaps endeavoring to make absolutely sure that I was not a German spy--and then, apparently deciding in my favor, told me what he thought it was best for me to do. "If you will call on this man," mentioning the name of a Belgian in ----, a city through which I had to pass, he advised, "you will be able to make arrangements with him to secure a passport, and he will do everything he can to get you out of Belgium."