"So am I, now that you remind me of it! Let's see if we can't buy something to eat. I think we can, if the Germans haven't taken everything."
But now, as they went about trying to find someone to sell them food, they found that Arthur's fear as to the opinion the villagers had of them was justified by the facts. At first they met only excuses.
"I have had to give up all I can spare for the Prussians," they were told.
But finally, when they went to the shop of Raymond the butcher, hoping to buy some meat and cook it for themselves, they got plain speech.
"Go to your Prussian friends if you want food!" said Raymond, eyeing them angrily. "You will get none from any good Belgian in Hannay, I can tell you!"
"The Prussians are not our friends! They forced us to come back with them because they had forbidden everyone to travel in the direction we had taken," said Paul.
"Tell that to the gatepost!" said Raymond. "Be off with you! You fooled our people this morning, but now they know the truth."
And so Paul and Arthur faced the prospect of going hungry. They might have appealed to Major Kellner, who had shown himself inclined to be friendly toward them, apparently because his boy was, like them, a Boy Scout. But that neither of them would do.
"I'd rather go without than ask the Germans for anything!" said Arthur.
"So would I!" agreed Paul. "But I would like to get away from here."