And what had they done? Well, first of all they had been afraid, running to look at the squirming heap of treasure, peeping shrilly in agitation, and running frantically away with fluttering wings and hearts. The circle of omnipotents, hanging over the wire-netting had been able to endure this foolishness with an approach to the necessary god-like toleration of the limitations of a lesser race. One of the Thors, it seemed, the six-year-old-one, had tried to hurry up the progress of the race, by catching one of his pin-headed charges and holding him firmly in a benevolent small hand, directly in front of the delicious food, “where he couldn’t _help_ seeing how good it was, seems ’s if,” explained Thor Number Three, to me. 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.