This is by request for Igiveup, who wishes to join the bandwagon boycotting the document difficulties in a polite and somewhat good-natured way - the issue now being the document manager turning a whole chapter into italics for no random reason.

The Case of the Disgruntled Doctor

CRASH!

I jerked my head up from studying my 17th century parchment in some alarm when I heard the shattering sound of a coffee cup being slammed into a saucer and a string of colourful oaths I had no idea Watson possessed, deep amid that amiable nature.

"What the devil's gotten into you, Watson?"

"If it isn't one thing, it's another!" he almost yelled, making me wince with his vehemence as he threw a magazine at me from the breakfast table, stabbing his sausage as if it were a living thing and he were trying to murder it.

"Not the Strand typesetters again? Your horizontal lines still disappearing, eh?" I asked absently, riffling through the pages with an air of boredom.

I was actually secretly looking to see if that Paget chap had done a better job of sketching me this time than the last – I had retained all the shape of a pencil and I was completely unappreciative. And it was deucedly unflattering how long he made my nose look.

"No, no, they got the lines in there fine this time," he growled, refilling the coffee cup he had spilt.

"The words getting smashed together then?"

"No, they fixed that too this time."

"Then what the devil are you blathering about?" I demanded, peeking with interest at the full-page drawing of me striking an oversized snake with a cane – very good, very good. I would like to think I had more hair than that, however, and the lighting wasn't quite right, but…

"Did you even look at it?" Watson growled, downing the rest of his coffee and swearing as it burnt his tongue.

I sighed and opened to the story in question.

"What's wrong with it now?"

"Do you see the difference between that story and the others, Holmes?" he asked, dangerously patiently.

"Hmm? Other than the fact it's considerably more melodramatic and luridly romantic?"

"Oh, do stow it, Holmes. Look at the type – the whole story is in italics, for the love of heaven! Italics!"

"Is this a major crime? What is wrong with a different font?" I asked irritably, flipping through the rest of the magazine.

Watson paced up and down the room in a genuinely distrait fashion, and I watched him incredulously.

"Holmes, italics are to be used A: When quoting someone. B. When writing out a journal entry. C. In dream sequences. D. To emphasize, the same as bold print does. E. To indicate thoughts. Never for an entire bloody story!"

I stared at him in a deal of surprise.

"They are really that big of a deal?"

"To look at this story, one would think I was either dreaming the whole thing, thinking the whole thing, or writing the whole thing in my journal!" he almost howled in dismay, and I tried to stifle a snicker at his despairing look as he picked up the magazine sadly.

"Why do you suppose it only happens to me?" he asked mournfully, "none of the other writers have that problem."

"I am sure they do, yours is just more evident," I attempted to console him.

"No," he said sadly, slumping down into his chair by the fire, "I'm the only one."

"Surely not, Watson."

"Yes, I am, Holmes. Why me?"

I picked up the magazine and began flipping through it again.

"Perhaps the editors are having complaints about your stories so they are sabotaging you rather."

"What? What's wrong with my stories! Why would they get complaints?" he asked indignantly.

I stopped, shaking my head at a large advertisement of some disgustingly drippy romance story – already on its fifteenth installment. Heaven help us.

"They might get them, because your stories are so obviously superior compared to these other mindless pieces of nonsense that they feel the need to handicap you slightly," I said absently, slapping the magazine shut and tossing it unceremoniously at him.

Watson's jaw had dropped and he was staring at me as if I had taken leave of my senses. That worried me – what had I just said? I had not been thinking, I was reading the story lines.

"What?"

"Are you feeling quite well, Holmes?" he asked, peering at me closely, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Yes, why?" I demanded, picking up my parchment – what had I said anyhow?

"Nothing, never mind. I just have to say I prefer your solution to the others that I was thinking of," he replied, tossing the magazine to the floor and leaning back with his hands behind his head.

"That's nice, glad to help," I replied mechanically, trying to decipher the writing on the document in front of me. I believed I would need a more powerful lens.

As I glanced up at him, I wondered for a moment why he had that ridiculously silly grin on his face. Bah.

Writers. Temperamental bunch, that.

All in good fun. Sort of.