Does it itch?

Well, I came across to this eye-catcher excerpt today.
The two expressions I noticed are the ones which are written in green:

Robert M. Hutchins:
It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness which would do credit to any college student, but
the monkey is serious because he itches.

wears an expression of:
[U,C] things that people say, write or do in order to show their feelings, opinions and ideas:

do credit to (sb/sth):
if sth does credit to a person or an organization, they deserve to be praised for it.
Example: Your honesty does you great credit.

And the most interesting part of it is “because he itches”. look at the following part from Oxford dictionary:

To itch:
1 [V] to have an uncomfortable feeling on your skin that makes you want to scratch; to make your skin feel like this:
I itch all over. * Does the rash itch? * This sweater really itches.
2 ~ for sth / to do sth (informal) (often used in the progressive tenses) to want to do sth very much:
[V] The crowd was itching for a fight. * [Vtoinf] He's itching to get back to work.
She has an itch to travel. * the creative itch

You see that in this speech the first entry is correct but notice the second entry!….this is the same as we use it in Persian, is it the example of “گرته برداري”?