The Craze of Christina — page 51: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

The Craze of Christina. 47 his eye was caught by a curious object project- ing from the upper story of a low building, which dangled forth over the road above his head. Clifford stopped short to investigate this ob- ject; he found that it was a bracket of wrought iron-work, from which depended a white painted shield or sign, on which some cabalistic words in old English characters were written in scar- let. After some difficulty he managed to de- cipher them: “Y° signe of y Antient Manne.”’ These words puzzled him extremely. Why were they wrongly spelt? and what was the meaning of “‘y°’? Filled with curiosity, he - now examined the building behind the sign. It ought, of course, to have been an inn, but evi- dently it was nothing of the kind; it was merely a one-storied ordinary red brick house with a door and two windows on the ground floor and three windows above. Between the upper win- dows and the lower ones, on the flat red brick of the house, ran another strange and curious legend equally badly spelt: “*Y° olde Shoppe of Arte.’’ This was more bewildering still to Clifford’s matter-of-fact mind. | ‘‘Why do they spell shop like that?’’ he mut- tered; ‘‘and what the dickens is ‘y®’ ?”’ CGomichooksnco