- [Mycroft and Joan are eating at the dinner table, while Sherlock paces, poring over the case files]
- Mycroft Holmes: [to Joan] I can't quite believe I'm going to say this to a grown man, but...
- [to Sherlock]
- Mycroft Holmes: Your food's getting cold.
- [Joan snickers]
- Dr. Joan Watson: [Sherlock is jabbing her while she's sleeping] Why are you poking me with your single stick?
- Sherlock Holmes: I'm prodding the sheets in order to determine whether or not my brother is in there with you.
- Sherlock Holmes: Could you just stay out of the eyeline?
- Mycroft Holmes: You're joking. I was just standing here.
- Sherlock Holmes: Yes, that's the problem.
- Sherlock Holmes: [to Mycroft] Would you get in touch with the Marchioness? I would very much like to ask her why drug dealers want to murder her horse.
- Sherlock Holmes: Joan Watson, this is Nigella Mason, my brother's former fiancee.
- Dr. Joan Watson: Oh... oh! It's, uh, nice to meet you.
- Nigella Lawson: Lovely to meet you.
- Mycroft Holmes: Shall we?
- Nigella Lawson: Yes.
- [as she and Mycroft take their seats, Joan turns to Sherlock]
- Dr. Joan Watson: [whispering] I'm confused. Didn't you and your brother's fiancee...?
- Sherlock Holmes: Rut? Copulate? Engage in several bouts of vigorous sex? Yes, yes we did.
- Sherlock Holmes: Of course Mycroft's spiritual awakening is tied to some kind of illness. The man has never met a cliché he didn't have a head-on collision with.