He resolved to go on as far as this lamp, and then, if it showed him nothing in the shape of an inn, to return to the central part of the town, and to try if he could not at least secure a chair to sit down on through the night at one of the principal hotels.
As he got near the lamp he heard voices, and, walking close under it, found that it lighted the entrance to a narrow court, on the wall of which was painted a long hand in faded flesh-color, pointing, with a lean forefinger, to this inscription: THE TWO ROBINS.
Arthur turned into the court without hesitation to see what The Two Robins could do for him.

Four or five men were standing together round the door of the house, which was at the bottom of the court, facing the entrance from the street.

The men were all listening to one other man, better dressed than the rest, who was telling his audience something, in a low voice, in which they were apparently very much interested.
On entering the passage, Arthur was passed by a stranger with a knapsack in his hand, who was evidently leaving the house.
"No," said the traveler with the knapsack, turning round and addressing himself cheerfully to a fat, sly-looking, bald-headed man, with a dirty white apron on, who had followed him down the passage, "no, Mr.
Landlord, I am not easily scared by trifles; but I don't mind confessing that I can't quite stand _that_." It occurred to young Holliday, the moment he heard these words, that the stranger had been asked an exorbitant price for a bed at The Two Robins, and that he was unable or unwilling to pay it.

The moment his back was turned, Arthur, comfortably conscious of his own well-filled pockets, addressed himself in a great hurry, for fear any other benighted traveler should slip in and forestall him, to the sly-looking landlord with the dirty apron and the bald head.
"If you have got a bed to let," he said, "and if that gentleman who has just gone out won't pay your price for it, I will." The sly landlord looked hard at Arthur.

"Will you, sir ?" he asked, in a meditative, doubtful way.
"Name your price," said young Holliday, thinking that the landlord's hesitation sprang from some boorish distrust of him.