chunk: The protagonist of this bildungsroman is Arthur "Artie" Kipps, an illegitimate orphan. In Book I ("The Making of Kipps") he is raised by his aged aunt and uncle who keep a little shop in New Romney, on the southern coast of Kent. He attends the Cavendish Academy ("a middle-class school," not a "boarding school") in Hastings, in East Sussex. "By inherent nature he had a sociable disposition," and befriends Sid Pornick, the neighbour's boy. Kipps falls in love with Sid's younger sister Ann, and Ann gives him half a sixpence as a token of their love when at the age of fourteen he is apprenticed to the Folkestone Drapery Bazaar, run by Mr. Shalford.