from the Danube. The second was that I had
Stumm's pass. I didn't see how I could use it, but there it was.
Lastly I had plenty of money--fifty-three English sovereigns and the
equivalent of three pounds in German paper which I had changed at the
hotel. Also I had squared accounts with old Stumm. That was the
biggest mercy of all.

I thought I'd better get some sleep, so I found a dryish hole below an
oak root and squeezed myself into it. The snow lay deep in these woods
and I was sopping wet up to the knees. All the same I managed to sleep
for some hours, and got up and shook myself just as the winter's dawn
was breaking through the tree tops. Breakfast was the next thing, and
I must find some sort of dwelling.

Almost at once I struck a road, a big highway running north and south.
I trotted along in the bitter morning to get my circulation started,
and presently I began to feel a little better. In a little I saw a
church spire, which meant a village. Stumm wouldn't be likely to have
got on my tracks yet, I calculated, but there was always the chance
that he had warned all the villages round by telephone and that they
might be on the look-out for me. But that risk had to be taken, for I
must have food.

It was the day before Christmas, I remembered, and people would be
holidaying. The village was quite a big place, but at this hour--just
after eight o'clock--there was nobody in the street except a wandering
dog. I chose the most unassuming shop I could find, where a little boy
was taking down the shutters--one of those general stores where they
sell everything. The boy fetched a very old woman, who hobbled in from
the back, fitting on her spectacles.

'Gruss Gott,' she said in a friendly voice, and I took off my cap. I
saw from my reflection in a saucepan that I looked moderately
respectable in spite of my night in the woods.

I told her the story of how I was walking from Schwandorf to see my
mother at an imaginary place called judenfeld, banking on the ignorance
of villagers about any place five miles from their homes. I said my
luggage had gone astray, and I hadn't time to wait for it, since my
leave was short. The old lady was sympathetic and unsuspecting. She
sold me a pound of chocolate, a box of biscuits, the better part of a
ham, two tins of sardines and a rucksack to carry them. I also bought
some soap, a comb and a cheap razor, and a small Tourists' Guide,
published by a Leipzig firm.