Thanks to Andrea Malcolm for ordering me to update!
(And to Esty, Chronos Keeper and Haley Macrae for reviewing ages ago...)
See first chapter for disclaimer...
Chapter Two
The next morning, I awoke early and was at breakfast before my friend. He was visibly taken aback at seeing me already embarking upon bacon and eggs when he stepped through the door; and I took a secret pleasure in thus discommoding my friend.
"Why, Watson," he remarked as he sat, "Your wife has taught you punctuality, if nothing else." He seemed about to make further comment, but thought better of it. That was wise, for I was badly missing my wife. Although I often left her during the day, and even occasionally for one night, I had never been away from her for more than three days since our first meeting. Had he made any disparaging comment, as I fear he was too often apt to do, I doubt whether I would have held my tongue.
There was a rather awkward silence for some minutes, as Holmes picked at a slice of toast. Mrs Hudson had excelled herself, or I had forgotten how good a cook she was; the bacon was perfection. Our maid at home - our former maid, rather, for, as I had promised, I had given her notice before I arrived to stay with Holmes - had never grasped the principle of bacon. It had reached the table so burnt and crisp that it was impossible even to stab it with one's fork; and when I had remonstrated for the seventh time with her about this, she had burst into tears and proceeded to the opposite extreme, serving bacon so uncooked that it was still translucent. As a respectable and well-informed medical man, I could not bring myself to eat such raw meat. Eggs had been no better. Fried eggs had disintegrated in the pan, the yolk and white so inextricably mixed that the burnt toast could not penetrate; scrambled eggs had been burned and under-seasoned; and although I had told her time and time again that four minuted sufficed for a soft-boiled egg, she had persisted in cooking them for twenty. However much I missed Mary, I could not miss Nora's cooking.
I remarked something upon this theme to Holmes, who murmured, "I always knew you to be a secret romantic... but I now realise your inclinations must run very deep. It is not the lot of every man's romanticism to survive such vicissitudes."
"Really, Holmes!" I protested, "I knew you for a cynic, but with that you have gone too far. It is poor love indeed that cannot survive a short separation!"
Abashed by my glare, I supposed, he dropped his eyes meekly but remarked with his customary acerbic wit, "I was referring to the far greater vicissitude of an inferior maid, my very dear Watson."
It was not fair, emphatically not fair. He always managed to outwit me. I could count only two occasions on which I had got the better of him in a contest of wit; but, I consoled myself, few men could boast a better brain than Sherlock Holmes.