The Crooked Billet is a sign for which it is difficult to suggest an explanation. It is generally represented by a rough untrimmed stick hanging before the door. Near Bridlington is one such, to which are appended the following lines:— When this comical stick grew in the wood Our ale was fresh and very good; Step in and taste, O do make haste, For if you don’t ’twill surely waste. On the other side is the verse:— When you have viewed the other side, Come read this too before you ride, And now to end we’ll let it pass; Step in, kind friends, and take a glass. The Bull and Mouth, a favourite London sign in former days, and one still to be found, is represented by a huge gaping mouth and a small black bull just within its verge. This sign dates from the time of {223} Henry VIII., and celebrates his capture of Boulogne Harbour, or Boulogne Mouth. The Beetle and Wedge at first sight seems a very strange association, but when we remember Shakspere’s line, Filip me with a three-man beetle, the matter is clear enough. The “three-man beetle” was a hammer or mallet wielded by three men and used for pile driving. The three Lubberheads is a corruption of the three Libbards’ Heads, “libbard” being a popular form of the word leopard; Falstaff is “invited to dinner at the Libbard’s Head in Lumbert Street to Master Smooth’s the silkman.” The Two Pots was the sign under which the far-famed ale-wife, Eleanor Rumyng, brewed her “noppy ale” at Leatherhead, where, according to Skelton, she made thereof fast sale, To travellers, to tinkers, To sweaters, to swinkers, And all good ale drinkers. The Stewponey Inn, between Kinver and Stourbridge, might suggest to some that the Parisian Hippophagic Society was not much of a novelty after all. It is therefore rather disappointing to find that the name is a popular version of the Stourponte Inn, so called from a bridge over the Stour hard by. The Four Alls, though probably once the sign of a house frequented by the fraternity of Cobblers, now generally presents itself in the following lines with suitable illustrations:— The Ploughman works for All, The Parson prays for All, The Soldier fights for All, And the Farmer pays for All. It seems sad to think that in some places a pessimistic Publican has added a fifth “All,” the picture representing the Prince of Darkness, rampant, and looking anything but “a gentleman,” with the grim legend writ beneath that he “takes All.” Old Pick-my-Toe would seem to be a popular perversion of the Roman fable of the faithful slave who carried his message before he stooped to remove the thorn which was all the while in his foot. The Shoe and Slap was an old sign, the “Slap” being a lady’s shoe with a loose sole. {224}