“Why not?”
“He seemed embarrassed when I asked him the reason, and he turned the subject.”
“Absolutely hopeless, is it?”
“Colonel Dabney says so.”
“What will you do with it?”
“I don’t know, dear; what do you think?”
“Couldn’t you alter it into something else?”
“I thought of that. It occurred to me that maybe I might turn it into the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots and get the Canadian Government to buy it.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Paint in different clothes, you know, on Washington, and fix up the tree somehow into Mary Queen of Scots. I think the hatchet will do as it is—do for the executioner’s axe, you know.”