arose from the advantage which pupils and parents took of his boundless
good nature, Mavis did not hear him utter a complaining word of a
living soul, always excepting Gellybrand.

She learned how Mr Poulter had been happily married, although
childless; also, that his wife had died of a chill caught by walking
home, insufficiently clad, from an "All Night" in bleak weather. For
all the pain that her absence caused in his life, he looked bravely,
confidently forward (sometimes with tears in his eyes) to when they
should meet again, this time never to part. When the evenings were
fine, Mr Poulter would take Miss Nippett and Mavis for a ride on a tram
car, returning in time for the night classes. Upon one of these
excursions, someone in the tram car pointed out Mr Poulter to a friend
in the hearing of the dancing-master; this was enough to make Mr
Poulter radiantly happy for the best part of two days, much to Mavis's
delight.

Another human trait in the proprietor of "Poulter's" was that he was
insensible to Miss Nippett's loyalty to the academy, he taking her
devotion as a matter of course.

Miss Nippett and Mavis, also, became friends; the latter was moved by
the touching faith which the shrivelled-up little accompanist had in
the academy, its future, and, above all, its proprietor. If the rivalry
between "Poulter's" and "Gellybrand's" could have been decided by an
appeal to force, Miss Nippett would have been found in the van of
"Poulter's" adherents, firmly imbued with the righteousness of her
cause. She lived in Blomfield Road, Shepherd's Bush, a depressing,
blind little street, at the end of which was a hoarding; this latter
shut off a view of a seemingly boundless brickfield. Miss Nippett
rented a top back room at number 19, where, on one Sunday afternoon,
Mavis, being previously invited, went to tea. The little room was neat
and clean; tea, a substantial meal, was served on the big black box
which stood at the foot of Miss Nippett's bed. After tea, Miss Nippett
showed, with much pride, her little treasures, which were chiefly
pitiful odds and ends picked up upon infrequent excursions to Isle of
Thanet watering-places. Her devotion to these brought a lump to Mavis's
throat. After the girl had inspected and admired these household gods,
she was taken to the window, in order to see the view, now lit by a
brilliant full moon. Mavis looked over a desert of waste land and
brickfield to a hideous, forbidding-looking st