not eloquent of the man who cherished it?

Freak canes are displayed here and there by persons of a pleasantly
bizarre turn of mind: canes encased in the hide of an elephant's tail,
canes that have been intricately carven by some Robinson Crusoe, or
canes of various other such species of curiosity. There is a veteran
New York journalist who will be glad to show any student of canes one
which he prizes highly that was made from the limb of a tree upon which
a friend of his was hanged. In our age of handy inventions a type of
cane is manufactured in combination with an umbrella.

Canes are among the useful properties of the theatre. He would be a
decidedly incomplete villain who did not carry a cane. Imaginative
literature is rich in canes. Who ever heard of a fairy godmother
without a cane? Who with any feeling for terror has not been startled
by the tap, tap of the cane of old Pew in "Treasure Island"? There is
an awe and a pathos in canes, too, for they are the light to blind men.
And the romance of canes is further illustrated in this: they, with
rags and the wallet, have been among the traditional accoutrements of
beggars, the insignia of the "dignity springing from the very depth of
desolation; as, to be naked is to be so much nearer to the being a man,
than to go in livery." J. M. Barrie was so fond of an anecdote of a
cane that he employed it several times in his earlier fiction. This
was the story of a young man who had a cane with a loose knob, which in
society he would slyly shake so that it tumbled off, when he would
exclaim: "Yes, that cane is like myself; it always loses its head in
the presence of ladies."

Canes have figured prominently in humour. The Irishman's shillelagh
was for years a conspicuous feature of the comic press. And there will