“No, I haven’t,” said Chick. “Nor have you found out why Shakespeare wrote no plays the last three years of his life.”
“Quite true,” said the Poet; “but then I don’t work at the Museum, where they find out everything!”
“No, they don’t,” said Chick; “you’re quite out of it. Spare your irony for once. I’ll just tell you what happened that afternoon. I kept thinking of that bird all the way up to the Museum after I left you, for when I came to think of it, that tail-wagging was rather an interesting point. So when I got there, I asked the Professor about it. Well, he was a bit bothered with his specimens that afternoon, and rather short in his temper, and I was late, which made him worse; so he gave me a lecture on the spot. He’s a good lecturer, you know, even when he’s quite serene: but when he’s savage there’s no one like him. He comes out with home-truths then, and blows you into little bits. I wish you would come and let him demolish you, Poet, it would knock such a heap of rubbish out of your poetic head.”
“Very likely,” said the Poet: “but what nonsense did he knock out of your head? Plenty there to operate upon.”
“I quite allow it,” said Chick. “That is a scientific view of education which you poets would do well to act on. But the Professor growled at me when I asked him why wagtails wag their tails, and said there would have been some use in asking how they do it. And then he took me into his room, and showed me diagrams, and explained the muscular system of a bird, which I never understood before; and he kept me a whole hour there, till at last he got quite sweet again. And after that he said he’d give me a piece of advice, which I’ll hand on to you, and I hope it will do you good.”
“I’m sitting at your feet,” said the Poet, “go on.”
“Well, what he said was this: ‘You young fellows are a deal too anxious to get hold of a reason for everything; and I dare say you think it a fine thing to come and try to puzzle us with questions. Now what you have to learn here at present is not reasons, but facts. Leave alone for the present these questions that begin with the word why; there are many of them that can never be answered, as far as I can see, or they can only be answered by getting together and properly arranging a great quantity of facts. Your wagtail question is just one of this kind. You have no more business to be asking me such a question, than a young wagtail has to be asking its parents why it wags its tail. You stick to facts, and don’t ask why a thing is, until you know altogether and exactly that it is and how it is.’
“And I’ve been sticking to facts ever since,” added Chick; “and you’d much better do the same. Pull on, Poet; and whenever you see a wagtail think of what I’ve told you, and your poetic brain will be all the better for it.”
“There she goes,” said the Poet: “I wonder why she stopped so long. I really think she was listening to us.”
“I might have spared you the Professor’s sermon,” said Chick. “Pull on, Poet; go ahead. Here we are running into the bank while you’re asking questions that begin with why!” And they dropped slowly down the stream.