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 traveller 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 traveller 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.
'Name your price, and I'll give you the money at once if you like?'