Mr Twit wiped the tomato sauce from his beard with a corner of the tablecloth. 'Why?' he said.
'And why it had a nasty bitter taste?'
'Why?' he said.
'Because it was worms!' cried Mrs Twit, clapping her hands and stamping her feet on the floor and rocking with horrible laughter.
The Funny Walking-stick
To pay Mrs Twit back for the worms in his spaghetti, Mr Twit thought up a really clever nasty trick.
One night, when the old woman was asleep, he crept out of bed and took her walking-stick downstairs to his workshed. There he stuck a tiny round piece of wood (no thicker than a penny) on to the bottom of the stick.
This made the stick longer, but the difference was so small, the next morning Mrs Twit didn't notice it.
The following night, Mr Twit stuck on another tiny bit of wood. Every night, he crept downstairs and added an extra tiny thickness of wood to the end of the walking-stick. He did it very neatly so that the extra bits looked like a part of the old stick.
Gradually, but oh so gradually, Mrs Twit's walking-stick was getting longer and longer.
Now when something is growing very slowly, it is almost impossible to notice it happening. You yourself, for example, are actually gr
owing taller every day that goes by, but you wouldn't think it, would you? It's happening so slowly you can't even notice it from one week to the next.
It was the same with Mrs Twit's walking-stick. It was all so slow and gradual that she didn't notice how long it was getting even when it was halfway up to her shoulder.
'That stick's too long for you,' Mr Twit said to her one day.
'Why so it is!' Mrs Twit said, looking at the stick. 'I've had a feeling there was something wrong but I couldn't for the life of me think what it was.'
'There's something wrong all right,' Mr Twit said, beginning to enjoy himself.
'What can have happened?' Mrs Twit said, staring at her old walking-stick. 'It must suddenly have grown longer.'
'Don't be a fool!' Mr Twit said. 'How can a walking-stick possibly grow longer? It's made of dead wood, isn't it? Dead wood can't grow.'
'Then what on earth has happened?' cried Mrs Twit.
'It's not the stick, it's you!' said Mr Twit, grinning horribly. 'It's you that's getting shorter! I've been noticing it for some time now.'
'That's not true!' cried Mrs Twit.
'You're shrinking, woman!' said Mr Twit.
'It's not possible!'
'Oh yes it jolly well is,' said Mr Twit. 'You're shrinking fast! You're shrinking dangerously fast! Why, you must have shrunk at least a foot in the last few days!'
'Never!' she cried.
'Of course you have! Take a look at your stick, you old goat, and see how much you've shrunk in comparison! You've got the shrinks, that's what you've got! You've got the dreaded shrinks!'
Mrs Twit began to feel so trembly she had to sit down.
Mrs Twit Has the Shrinks
As soon as Mrs Twit sat down, Mr Twit pointed at her and shouted, 'There you are! You're sitting in your old chair and you've shrunk so much your feet aren't even touching the ground!'
Mrs Twit looked down at her feet and by golly the man was right. Her feet were not touching the ground.