Calling a class method on a nullptr is seemingly allowed by MSVC and GCC. Even lazy and sloppy code.

http://coliru.stacked-crooked.com/a/ee0c07e1ac1b27e3

I meant what I posted, though it is fraught with "dragons be here" issues. The member variable will be non-existent when creating the pointer version in my original version. So either remove the member variable, or actually create the pointer properly. Using new also works.