"A cane! A cane! Look at that, will ye?" He flashed six inches of
grooved silvery handle before their faces, and three feet of
shining black steel, scarcely thicker than a lead pencil. "Cane!"
he cried scornfully. Then he picked up the box, and opening it drew
out a little machine that shone like a silver watch, and setting it
against the handle, slipped a small slide over each end, and it
held firmly, and shone bravely.
"Oh, Jimmy, what is it?" cried Mary.
"Me cane!" answered Jimmy. "Me new cane from Boston. Didn't you
hear Dannie sayin' what it was? This little arrangemint is my
cicly-meter, like they put on wheels, and buggies now, to tell how
far you've traveled. The way this works, I just tie this silk thrid
to me door knob and off I walks, it a reeling out behind, and whin
I turn back it takes up as I come, and whin I get home I take the
yardstick and measure me string, and be the same token, it tells me
how far I've traveled." As he talked he drew out another shining
length and added it to the first, and then another and a last, fine
as a wheat straw. "These last jints I'm adding," he explained to
Mary, "are so that if I have me cane whin I'm riding I can stritch
it out and touch up me horses with it. And betimes, if I should
iver break me old cane fish pole, I could take this down to the
river, and there, the books call it `whipping the water.' See!
Cane, be Jasus! It's the Jim-dandiest little fishing rod anybody in
these parts iver set eyes on.
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