But the chick had, it appeared, been perfectly capable of not seeing how good it was, because his mind was entirely taken up With his terror at being held. He had merely emitted one frenzied screech of horror after another till the other chicks began to run about and screech too, and the older, more experienced gods had sharply told young Thor that he didn’t know so much about this god-business as he thought he did, and that experience had told them the only thing to do was to let the chicks alone till they got used to a new idea. That always took forever, they informed their young colleague.
So after this they had waited and waited and waited, while the chicks fluttered, and peeped and ran away from what they really wanted above everything; from what the gods had so kindly put there for them to enjoy.
“Gee whiz!” said Mars disdainfully. “Wouldn’t you think they’d know enough for that! There was room for every last one of them to stand around the pile, and eat all they wanted, without stirring a toe.”
Finally, one bold adventurer had struck his beak experimentally into the pile, pulled out a tasty piece of meat, and turned aside to gobble it down.
And then what?
Did the other chicks follow his sensible example and begin at last to profit by their opportunity.
“No! no! no!” A chorus of all the gods assured me that nothing like that had happened. Instead, with shrill twitters of excitement, all the twenty or more chicks had thrown themselves on that one, to wrest his bit from him.
“Honest to goodness, they did!” Loki affirmed to me, passionately, as if feeling that I could not possibly believe in such unreason if I had not seen it.
The chick with the worm had taken to his heels, unable to swallow his prize because of the hunt against him. Up and down the little world of their yard, he had run frantically, wildly, and silently (because of his mouth being full). And up and down, wildly, frantically and vociferously (their mouths being empty) his fellow-chicks had pursued him, bent on catching him and taking away from him whatever it was he prized enough to try to possess. As he turned and doubled to escape them, they turned and doubled in a pack, slipping, falling, and trampling on each other in their blind fury.
Presently, “What do you think!” cried the oldest of the Thors. “He got so rattled that he lost his piece of worm out of his mouth, but the others didn’t give him time to tell them that. Anyhow, they’d yelled and carried on so, they had him up in the air. He didn’t know by that time what he was doing; and he kept on legging it as hard as ever, and they after him.”