Pop goes the weasel.

Many explanations have been given of 'weasel.' Some say
it was a purse made of weasel skin; others that it was a
tailor's flat-iron which used to be pawned (or 'popped')
to procure the needful for admission to the tavern. A third
(and more intelligible) suggestion is that the line is simply
a catch phrase, without any meaning.

There is a notable reference to the organ in _Little
Dorrit_. Arthur Clennam goes to call on old Frederick Dorrit,
the clarionet player, and is directed to the house where he
lived. 'There were so many lodgers in this house that the
door-post seemed to be as full of bell handles as a cathedral
organ is of stops,' and Clennam hesitates for a time, 'doubtful
which might be the clarionet stop.'

Further on in the same novel we are told that it was the organ
that Mrs. Finching was desirous of learning.

I have said ever since I began to recover the blow of
Mr. F's death that I would learn the organ of which
I am extremely fond but of which I am ashamed to say
I do not yet know a note.

The following fine description of the tones of an organ occurs
in _The Chimes_:

The organ sounded faintly in the church below. Swelling
by degrees the melody ascended to the roof, and filled