"It made itself up, as it always does," I said, laughing. "It never puts me in the painful position of having to decide, but takes its own line at once. I am going to America by the next steamer." Now, when I tell my readers that when I began to talk to Grandon I had no intention whatever of going to America, they will be able to form some idea, if they have not done so already, of what a funny mind mine is. It came upon me with the irresistible force of an inspiration, and from that moment I was morally booked and bound at all hazards to go. Grandon knew me so well that he was less surprised than he might have been, and only sighed deeply. He felt at that moment that there was something hopelessly wrong about me. He had been so often encouraged by a certain steadiness which I maintained for some time, and which led him to think me changed, and so often disappointed; for when he least expected it I broke the slender fetters of common-sense and conventionalism, which he and society between them had woven round me, and went off at a tangent. "Never mind, old fellow," I said, laughing, "there is no use sighing over me. I have pleasures and satisfactions arising from within that I should not have if I was like everybody else. Now, for instance:"--and the eagerness and turmoil which my new project excited within me seemed to reduce every other consideration to insignificance, for I began to feel conscious that, somehow or other, though I had often been in America before, this time it was to be to me a newer world than ever. "Are you going alone?" said Grandon; for I had not finished my sentence. "No," I said; and I guessed who my companion was to be, though no words had been exchanged between us. "Who IS going with you?" he asked, wonderingly, for my manner struck him, and I scarcely heard his question, so wrapt at that instance seemed all my faculties. I think I fell asleep and dreamt, but I can't recall exactly what I seemed to see. Grandon was shaking me, I thought, in the most heartless manner, and I told him as much when I opened my eyes. The fact was, I was a little knocked up with excitement; but I would not go and lie down till he promised me to stand for Dunderhead. Then I went to bed, and did not get up till the lamps were being lighted in Piccadilly.