He had finished his lunch, and was enjoying his smoke on the balcony, gazing over the harbour, of which the elevated position of the Grand Hotel offered a view which he never ceased to admire, when he recognized the sonorous voice of his marine friend of the morning, Captain Macdonald.
"Yes, indeed! Ticklish situation—you may well say so. Jack Maori sitting on a powder barrel, filling cartridges and smoking his pipe. I've often seen 'em—nothing to it."
"I agree with you, Macdonald; you and I have been long enough here to know how to deal with Maoris. The Government ought to see that the touchy beggars are not needlessly set up. I lost a dozen valuable blocks here in 1840 because a young fool of a pakeha didn't know the difference between taihai-ing (stealing) and mere taking away—tiaki-ing."
"Why, how was that?"
"Well, he said that Te Hira, the young chief of all the coast about there, was 'taihai-ing the goahore'—instead of tiaki-ing. He felt affronted—sulked, of course, and just as I fully expected to get all Shortland Crescent for—well, decidedly cheap—he shut up his mouth like a vice, and wouldn't sell a yard of his land. It shows what a queer people they are, when a grammatical error has such far-reaching consequences."
"Consequences!" echoed his companion; "I should think so. But I never heard of that adventure of yours."
"Well, it made a difference of about five thousand a year to me, according to the present price of the land. The Government got it afterwards, and cut it up into town lots. What noble buildings are on them now!"
"Look here, Lochiel," said the sea-captain; "suppose we walk over to the camp and have a Korǒero. I know this chief, and we can both patter Maori. It might do good to explain matters, and none of us want to see Auckland under martial law."
"It's just a grand idea!" said the other colonist, a tall distinguished-looking elderly man, whose spare upright figure suggested military training; once careless enough of danger, but now for some years declined to the more peaceful vocation of a merchant—one of the sea-roving, fearless breed of adventurers peculiar to Britain, whose wide-reaching mercantile transactions have included the mobilizing of armies and the levying of taxes; "in whose lumber-rooms," as in those of the Great Company now merged in Imperial rule, "are the thrones of ancient kings."
Here Massinger advanced, and bringing himself within the ken of the speakers, was at once introduced to "my old friend, Mr. Lochiel," as "Mr. Massinger, a gentleman who had come to settle among them."