Dinner being ended, Mr. Bryant drank the health of the King, which toast
passed round till it came to Mr. Castles, who, having filled a bumper,
substituted the following vulgar and sanguinary toast for that of the
King--"_May the last of Kings be strangled with the guts of the last
priest_;" a piece of brutality which had not even the miserable merit of
being original, he having copied it from one of the French anarchists.
This was a pretty specimen of the company that had intruded upon us! I
remonstrated against such blackguardism, and declared that I would not
remain in the room if there was any repetition of it. Mr. Castles,
nevertheless, soon began again in a similar strain, and having put forth
some most outrageous speech, as vulgar as it was seditious, both myself
and Mr. Bryant insisted upon the worthy gentleman leaving the room, or
holding his peace. He promised to do the latter, and he soon dropped
off, or appeared to drop off, into a very sound sleep. This was a
circumstance which struck me as being very suspicious, and therefore I
was particularly guarded in what I said, and in what was said by others.
At length two of the party, young Watson and Hooper, made a move to
retire, and I insisted upon it that they should take their friend
Castles with them; but he shammed so sound a sleep that it was with
difficulty he was got out of the room, and it was only effected by my
pulling the chair from under him; upon which he was in an instant as
wide awake as any man in the room. This convinced me that his sleep was
all a mere pretence. Soon after this the rest of the party left us, and
Mr. Bryant and myself remained to talk over the curious adventures of
the evening. We were both convinced that Castles was at any rate a great
villain, and I was determined in future not to be in a room where he
was.

On the next morning, Dr. Watson and Mr. Thistlewood came to apologise