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.