John Fothergill, An Innkeeper’s Diary (London: Chatto and Windus, 1934), p. 70:
At lunch there were two people, perhaps Colonial, a nice-looking woman and her husband, fat and bald save for some rust-coloured hair, rust freckles and a rust-coloured suit. He asked for Evian water, which I had said I hadn’t got, but I added, ‘You ought to try our Thame water—it’s supposed to be very good for –rusting tanks’; and seeing the quite accidental but apt application to the rusty fat gentleman I turned to the woman and said with a smile, ‘Rather a rude thing to say, wasn’t it?’