Little Dot jumps in.

On page 151, line 2220, there is some odd spacing and many dots.

"But he soon began
to shake with terror;......in shock
the wretch...........................
............... panicked and ran
away with the precious ..........
metalwork."

These dot could mean a pause, but this does not make any sense.  "The wretch *long unneeded drawn out  pause* panicked". Or "Precious *gasp breath huff* metalwork"?

Maybe the writer put the dots in so he could rhyme correctly without having to change the wording.

Or maybe Little Dot from the comic strip was created much earlier than we think.