His judgment being somewhat obscured, he was seized with one of the strangest fancies that ever entered the head of any naturally astute person. This was a belief that it behoved him, as well for the advancement of his own glory as the service of his country, to become a knight-errant (though, indeed, there was, perhaps, about him more of the errant than the knightly), and traverse the northern parts of Hibernia, armed and mounted, in quest of adventures, redressing every species of grievance save such as were not found in his own list, or "programme," which latter, indeed, he would by no means admit to be "grievances" at all. The poor gentleman imagined himself to be at least crowned Autocrat of Orangeia by the valour of his arm; and thus wrapt in these agreeable illusions, and borne away by the extraordinary pleasure he found in them, he hastened to put his design into execution.
The first thing he did was to scour up some rusty armour which had done service in the time of his great-grandfather, and had lain many years neglected in a corner. This he cleaned and furbished up as well as he could, but he found one great defect--it would not in any part stand one stroke from modern steel, much less one shot from modern gun. However, as he was rather fired with the yearning to attack than impressed with the necessity for defence, this deficiency troubled him but little.
In the next place he visited his steed, which though but a hobby of wooden aspect and no paces, yet in his eyes it surpassed any charger that the Achilles of Hawarden ever bestrode, or the Automedon of Derby ever handled. Many days was he deliberating upon what name he should give it; for, as he said to himself, it would be very improper that a horse so excellent appertaining to a Knight so famous should be without an appropriate name; he therefore endeavoured to find one that should express what he had been before he belonged to a knight-errant, and also what he now was; nothing could, indeed, be more reasonable than that, when the master changed his state, the horse should likewise change his name, and assume one pompous and high-sounding, as became the new order he now professed. Failing in this endeavour, he called his hobby, provisionally at least, _Ne Plus Ulster_, a name which if it suggested a sorry joke, was so far fitting that it was bestowed upon a sorry nag.