“ ‘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!”