His new machinery was standing idle, his business was getting worse and worse, he was greatly pressed and worried, and it was monstrous, she told herself, that at such a time he should be troubled with Ned's defiant behavior.
A short time before the school Christmas holidays Ned knocked at the door of Mr.Porson's study.

Since the conversation which they had had when first Ned heard of his mother's engagement Mr.Porson had seen in the lad's altered manner, his gloomy looks, and a hardness of expression which became more and more marked every week, that things were going on badly.

Ned no longer evinced the same interest in his work, and frequently neglected it altogether; the master, however, had kept silence, preferring to wait until Ned should himself broach the subject.
"Well, Sankey, what is it ?" he asked kindly as the boy entered.
"I don't think it's any use my going on any longer, Mr.Porson." "Well, Sankey, you have not been doing yourself much good this half, certainly.

I have not said much to you about it, for it is entirely your own business: you know more than nineteen out of twenty of the young fellows who get commissions, so that if you choose to give up work it is your own affair." "I have made up my mind not to go into the army," Ned said quietly.
Mr.Porson was silent a minute.
"I hope, my dear lad," he said, "you will do nothing hastily about this.
Here is a profession open to you which is your own choice and that of your father, and it should need some very strong and good reason for you to abandon it.

Come let us talk the matter over together, my boy, not as a master and his pupil, but as two friends.
"You know, my boy, how thoroughly I have your interest at heart.