Well, how would you like it yourself?" asked the Dodo, indignantly.

"I shouldn't mind in the least," remarked the Executioner, coolly.

"Not mind being killed!" shuddered the children.

[Illustration: "I never kill anybody when I chop their heads off."]

"Oh, _that's_ another question entirely," said the Executioner. "I never
kill anybody when I chop their heads off. It would be so cruel;
besides, that old-fashioned way is so ordinary. I am the Executioner
Extraordinary, you know."

"Well, how on earth do you execute people, then, if you don't kill
them?" demanded Dick.

"Oh, by a new method, which I have invented myself," declared the
Executioner. "I call it execution by proxy. I just make an effigy."

"What's that?" inquired Marjorie.

"Don't interrupt," said Dick. "Guy Fawkes is an effigy, you know--an old
stuffed thing, with a mask on. Go on, please."

"Well, then," continued the Executioner, "having made an effigy, as near
like my subject as possible, I just chop its head off, and there is an
end of the matter."

He looked around at the company, and smiled triumphantly.

Marjorie gave a sigh of relief. She didn't so much mind the execution
taking place if the poor Dodo was not to be killed. To her great
surprise, however, on looking at that interesting bird, she discovered
that he was weeping copiously, and wiping with an elaborate lace
handkerchief, which had evidently been concealed about his person, the
tears which trickled slowly down his great beak.

"What's the matter, poor goosey, goosey, gander?" said Fidge,
sympathetically.

"Don't!" snapped the Dodo, crossly. "I'm _not_ a goose."

"Well, what _is_ the matter, anyhow?" said Dick. "They are not going to
chop your head off it appears; so you ought to be glad, and not snivel
like that."

"I d--don't want to--to be--e m--made a guy of," sobbed the Dodo.

"What _do_ you mean?" asked the Executioner.

"Why, you said you would have to make an effigy of me; and he" (pointing
to Dick) "said it was a kind of Guy Fawkes, didn't you?" he added
appealing to Dick.

"Well, never mind," said the Archaeopteryx, sympathetically; "you have
the consolation that they couldn't make you a bigger guy than you are."

Strangely enough, the Dodo seemed to derive a considerable amount of
comfort from this idea, and, wiping away the few remaining tears, he
began to take an active interest in the manufacture of the effigy, which
the others set about constructing