"Who's there?" creaked a voice. The American moved towards the light.
"The hotel is shut to Americans," said the voice.
"The devil it is," shouted the American. "And why, then?"
"Man killed here last night," said the voice briefly. Fanny moved towards the light and saw an old man with a shawl upon his shoulders, who held a candle fixed in the neck of a bottle.
"I am English," she said to the old man. "I am alone. I want a room alone."
"I've a room … If you're not American!"
"I don't know what kind of a hole this is," said the American wrathfully. "I think you'd better come right back to the 'Y.' Say, here, what kind of a row was this last night you got a man killed in?"
"Kind of row your countrymen make," muttered the old man, and added
"Bandits!"
Soothing, on the one hand, entreating on the other, the girl got rid of her new friend, and effected an entrance into the hotel. ("If hotel it is!" she thought, in the brief passage of a panic while the old man stooped to the bolts of the door.)
"I've got rooms enough," he said, "rooms enough. Now they've gone.
Follow me."