Who is Mr. Noble?

Mr. Noble (sometimes called Pa Noble) is Adah and Francis's second landlord while they are living in the U.K. The narrator relates Mr. Noble's backstory in detail in Chapter 7, explaining that he came to England to study law, but like Francis, he failed his exams. He began drinking and gambling and got a job working as an elevator operator in a subway station. His white co-workers taunted him because of his race and ethnicity, and one day encouraged him to try to lift the elevator with his bare hands. He was permanently disabled by a shoulder injury and received a settlement from his employer that allowed him to buy a run-down house in a poor neighborhood. Since Mr. Noble is well-known in the Nigerian immigrant community in England, Adah and Francis go to him when they need a place to live. Adah dislikes his tendency to make comments about himself that conform to stereotypes about African people (telling his wife, for instance, that he was born in a tree), but she appreciates that he mediates when she and Francis are quarreling, taking her side when Francis is angry that she tried to get birth control.