‘Oh Pott! if you'd known How false she'd have grown, When you heard

the marriage bells tinkle; You'd have done then, I vow, What you

cannot help now, And handed her over to W*****’'

What,' said Mr Pott solemnly - 'what rhymes to ‘tinkle,’ villain?'

What rhymes to tinkle?' said Mrs. Pott, whose entrance at the

moment forestalled the reply. 'What rhymes to tinkle? Why, Winkle, I

should conceive.' Saying this, Mrs. Pott smiled sweetly on the

disturbed Pickwickian, and extended her hand towards him. The

agitated young man would have accepted it, in his confusion, had not

Pott indignantly interposed.

Back, ma'am - back!' said the editor. 'Take his hand before my very

face!'

'Mr P.!' said his astonished lady.

'Wretched woman, look here,' exclaimed the husband. 'Look here,

ma'am - ’Lines to a Brass Pot.’ ‘Brass Pot’; that's me, ma'am. ‘False

SHE'D have grown’; that's you, ma'am - you.' With this ebullition of

rage, which was not unaccompanied with something like a tremble, at

the expression of his wife's face, Mr Pott dashed the current number

of the Eatanswill INDEPENDENT at her feet.

Upon my word, Sir,' said the astonished Mrs. Pott, stooping to pick

up the paper. 'Upon my word, Sir!'

Mr Pott winced beneath the contemptuous gaze of his wife. He had

made a desperate struggle to screw up his courage, but it was fast

coming unscrewed again.

There appears nothing very tremendous in this little sentence, 'Upon

my word, sir,' when it comes to be read; but the tone of voice in which

it was delivered, and the look that accompanied it, both seeming to

bear reference to some revenge to be thereafter visited upon the head

of Pott, produced their effect upon him. The most unskilful observer

could have detected in his troubled countenance, a readiness to resign

his Wellington boots to any efficient substitute who would have

consented to stand in them at that moment.

Mrs. Pott read the paragraph, uttered a loud shriek, and threw herself

at full length on the hearth-rug, screaming, and tapping it with the

heels of her shoes, in a manner which could leave no doubt of the

propriety of her feelings on the occasion.

My dear,' said the terrified Pott, 'I didn't say I believed it; - I - ' but the

unfortunate man's voice was drowned in the screaming of his partner.

The Pickwick Papers