Note 9 — The Woodwork, Organ, etc.
Reading edition
A rebus was invariably a badge or device forming a pun upon a man's surname. It probably originated in the canting heraldry of earlier days. A large number of rebuses ending in "ton" are based upon a tun or barrel; such are the lup on a ton of Robert Lupton, Provost of Eton 1504, which appears in the spandrils of the door in the screen leading into his chapel at Eton College, or the kirk and ton of Abbott Kirkton on the deanery gate at Peterborough. The eye and the slip of a tree, which form, together with a man falling from a tree (I slip!), the rebuses of Abbot Islip, are well known. The ox crossing a ford in the arms of Oxford, and the Cam and its great bridge in the arms of Cambridge are kindred examples.