SMILE, SMILE, SMILE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 43, 13 October 1931, Page 3

SMILE, SMILE, SMILE

MAORI DEBTOR WHO PACKED UP HIS TROUBLES EVEN IN COURT. . Judgment summonses worry some people, but a youthful Maori who appeared in the Rotorua Magistrate's Court yesterday, supplied his chief comment upon his creditor's demand, by a wide and expansive smile. He had paid the money, he assured the examining solicitor, to a friend of his named "Tangi." What "Tangi" had done with it, however, he did not know and if his entirely cheerful appearance could be taken as any guide, it was occassioning him very little concern. But even if the defendant was satisfied with the bona fides of "Tangi," the solicitor was not, and in the face of further disarming smiles, he asked why the defendant had not come into his oifice and informed him about "Tangi." To all appearances, defendant regarded this query as a pleasantry worthy of his heartiest appreciation. "I don't know where your offiee is,' he assured the gentleman of the law. "But you could ask?" said the solicitor, obviously determined to introduce a note of business into the genial atmosphere of the dicussion. The youthful debtor admitted it quite eheerfully, but the fact remained that he had not asked. Even the meanest intelligence, he insinuated, could not have expected him to tell solieitors about his debts when he did not know where their offices were. "Do you know where the Palace Hptel is?" asked the man of law finally, turning the conversation into more congenial channels. Here, at least, the witness was not in doubt — he was obviously delighted to assure the court that he knew the locality of the hotel. "And the police station?" pursued his interlocutor in an endeavour to introduce a more serious note. But the debtor apparently was one of those rare beings who could treat a police station with the same favoui as an hotel and the heartiness of his smile remained unabated as he assured his Worship that he knew where to find both of those points of public interest. It did not even leave his face when the magistrate informed him that he could immediately set about paying the sum of approximately £14 or go to gaol for a fortnight. To this sunny soul hotels, police station and a fortnight's gaol apparently all had their rays of sunshine.