By their offices ye shall know them.

The personalities and personal histories of John McCain and Barack Obama are as evident in the artwork, books and mementoes in their Senate offices as in any words they may utter.

McCain's office oozes comfy clutter and informality: random piles of books, a fortune-cookie message taped to the desk, an abundance of tchotchkes and bric-a-brac.

Obama's office feels more like a gallery of modern art: precisely placed objects, sparsely adorned surfaces, clean lines, choreographed displays.

Both offices show their occupants' sentimental streak: McCain has a picture of his favorite high school teacher, and a 1904 Navy register that lists his grandfather as a midshipman. Obama has a photo of the cliff in Hawaii where his mother's ashes were scattered into the Pacific, and a tiger-beating stick from his grandmother's village in Kenya.

A walking tour of the Senate offices of the two presidential candidates tells a tale of their occupants:

McCAIN

The Arizona senator's office was decorated by his wife, Cindy, when he moved into his current suite in the Russell Office Building in 1995. She shipped in rugged wooden furniture, Southwestern artwork, a rocking chair, even the brass chandeliers.

Since then the decor has, well, evolved.

Family photos proliferate in haphazard abundance. Gifts from foreign leaders —an antique sword, an 18th century muzzleloader, a knife and sheath — are propped here and there, booty from overseas trips. Random stuffed animals are part of the scene, a dancing hamster in nautical attire among them. McCain, an avid reader, has books stacked seven- or eight-high along the length of a window sill. They include "For Whom the Bell Tolls," his favorite.

The desktop is a repository for this and that: a Barry Goldwater bobblehead, a stuffed Teddy Roosevelt, foam dice, a mug full of bird feathers, a stuffed green witch with "Army" written on her hat, a bracelet bearing the name of a soldier killed in Iraq, various patches, rocks, coins, pins. A note scrawled by a young constituent reads, "Please call us or We'll call you." The desk itself oozes history: It once belonged to Goldwater, the Arizona senator much admired by McCain.

Many of the items in the office are trinkets that friends and visitors have handed the Republican senator.

"Some of them he finds really cute and he keeps them — and they stay, and stay and stay," said Mark Buse, the senator's chief of staff.