From Wordwielder: lazy days
"I keep a bull pup," I said, "and I object to rows because my nerves are shaken, and I get up at all sorts of ungodly hours, and I am extremely lazy. I have another set of vices when I'm well, but those are the principal ones at present."
Dr John H Watson, 'A Study in Scarlet'
The bull pup, I soon realised with relief, was not an actual dog, but a euphemism for Watson's temper. It didn't flare up often; a slam of the door when the weather made his old wounds act up, or a sharp look when our landlady nagged him for not eating enough. He also said his nerves were shaken, but for the most part seemed quite a steady chap. He might disappear into his room during thunderstorms, but he hardly batted an eyelid when I asked if I might practice my shooting indoors. He had suggested I consult Mrs Hudson first, and then smiled a tad too smugly when she told me off for the bullet holes, but I suppose I couldn't blame him for that.
He had also called himself extremely lazy.
"Another lazy day," he would tell me self-consciously over the meals we shared in the early days of our acquaintance. "Read the paper, slept a little..."
This was another euphemism of course. His 'lazy days' were when the rain and cold were too much for him and he could not leave the house. Or when he slept well past noon to recoup on the sleep he had lost to night terrors the evening before. As time went on his health improved and his lazy days grew rarer, but the phrase remained a part of our shared vocabulary.
"A lazy day," he would say to me when news of a family bereavement arrived in the post, and I would spend the evening playing his favourite tunes upon my violin.
"A lazy day," I would say to him when struck by a particularly black mood, and he would come read his book in silent solidarity by the fire.
But truly, he misled me on a number of points in that first meeting of ours. In addition to the bullpup, the unsteady nerves and the so-called laziness, he also mentioned "another set of vices" when well - but he has been well for a number of years now, and I am yet to see a single one!