THE SORROWS OF A TUFTITE.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume XIII, Issue 1020, 29 April 1869, Page 2

THE SORROWS OF A TUFTITE.

By arriving first at the ball, it will be apparent that we had an unequalled opportunity of seeing the guests as they arrived. After nearly two hours of what I have since been told (though with what measure of truth 1 am not in a position to judge) was ghastly and listless wandering on my part about the slowly crowding rooms —meanwhile being encumbered with my bat and Mrs I 's two shawls —I became aware that royalty was within two feet of me. The thrill of ecstacy that transfixed me only seemed to present me as a fitting subject for those whose duty it was to preserve order toshow their officiousness upon. They hustled me into a side room in which a chorus of screams by a number of ladies’ maids speedily assured me of my mistake in thus finding an asylum from the affronts that 1 was forced, from a peaceable disposition, to endure in silence. I was fast breaking up. In another hour I had a presentiment that I should be mad. During all this time 1 never saw Mrs I ; whether she was gratified in her determination to dance with the Prince, I have not heard. The only person in all that brilliant assemblage that seemed to take auy interest in me was a stalwart and voracious looking native, who was exclusively apparelled in a navy uniform surtout, which, though considerably the worse of wear and wanting a number of important buttons, was still such as demanded my respect for its owner. I happened to have enough loose silver on me to gratify him in a small and temporary loan. We entered into as agreeable a conversation as a mutual diversity of language, assisted by significant signs, would permit. My respect for him was considerably heightened by the communication he made of his being a member of the House of Representatives. Next to the throne I honour the Legislative Institutions of my country, and never meet a member of these Institutions without thinking of the Magna Cliarta, —at the absolutely necessary enforcement of which an ancestor of my own played a no inconsiderable part. I therefore felt myself elevated —morally and intellectually—by enjoying the intercourse of a member of the Assemblj who was also one of that aboriginal race that people these islands. He by-and-bye—perhaps from an increasing familiarity —described how insults had been heaped upon him when magnanimously leaving his country residence (I have been since informed that it is somewhere in this neighbourhood), his wife and promising family, to welcome a son of his Queen, by - being forced to seek refuge for the purposes of discharging what he happened to have on his stomach,—a necessary duty of which most are aware as being incident to a sea voyage, - in the forecabin, having been denied admission to the saloon, —treatment which he indignantly resented (and I felt my own indignation almost ready to overcome my more placid demeanour at the mention of it), so that he refused to pay for his conveyance, and was incarcerated in consequence. This public-spirited member of parliament immediately after borrowed one of my wife’s shawls. Soon after, moved no doubt by my general appearance of weakness, he offered to carry to a place of safety he was acquainted with, the remaining shawl and my hat. 1 was informed that he and his companions, my interest in whom was agreeheightened by being told that they had recently been cannibals, 'were invited to dine with the Prince on board his ship the following day. While under the guidance of this chief the supper was announced, and as I was carried away by my companion’s impetuosity, and the impetuosity of a number of his subjects with whom I had become aeqainted and wlio accompanied us, I was conveyed into tliesupper room and jammed into an excellent place near the head of the table. From the appearance of the lower end it was sufficiently evident from a distance,without desiring to ascertain particularly by nearer approach, that a determined struggle was taking place between a number of ladies and gentlemen for admission at the door. There was food for twenty ou the tables according to the computation by my neighbour—that is, for twenty pakelias but only twelve maoris, including pikininies —and nearly two hundred were desirous of participating. 1 fancied — and it threw me into a cold perspiration—that I caught a glimpse of my wife’s tall figure in the press, but must have been mistaken as she evidently was not present when the eating commenced. I cannot he expected to describe the supper as I failed to get any. The behaviour of the attendants was—to say the least of it —somewhat peculiar. I had not been ten minutes seated between two natives, before one of these men came behind my chair, and in the most insulting and ominous tones, taunted me with being desirous of taking iny money’s worth of victuals. I certainly considered his remarks premature, but said nothing, though I lia-e an idea that I looked guilty, which only inspired him to fresh taunts that I meant to eat all before me. He then passed tc my neighbours, who received the insinuations with the utmost equanimity, and the only satisfaction they gave him, was by smacking their lips with fearful relish as they repled kapai the lcaikai ! The only way I can account for this otherinexplicable behaviour on the part of the waiters is that my friend the Colonial Secretary (it is useless to tell me no ; for I know his way 7 too well to mistake it) had so cut down the contractor that his only hope o f not being a loser was in saving as much as possible from the supper, and the equivocal course the waiters took of dis eouraging weakly-looking guests from eating, favours this supposition. I ainrather inclined to think the contiactor was disappointed in having the number of natives that there were present. I besides noticed that the waiters dared not address their taunting remarks to such gentlemen as were blessed with strong nerves and who did j seem determined to take their worth out in food. The slow method used in dispens- ' ing the supper was also evidently intended a discouraging effect on the appe- , tite. The natives, however, obviated the ' difficulty by helping themselves, and dispensing with the superfluities of knives and

forks ; the poultry especially presenting favourable subjects for efficient handling and picking. My legislative acquaintance took a fancy at an early stage of the repast to a beautifully modelled jelly, and after gnawing what be wanted deposited the remainder in the tail pocket of his naval uniform, and then for its better protection, sat upon it. At one particular stage, I was entertaining what was alas ! doomed to be an illusive hope of tasting food —for with the agreeable relaxation of the evening my appetite had returned, —but although my naval friend had just eaten a plate-ful of meat be did not suffer this plateiul, whose progress T had been watching with the utmost interest for some minutes before to reach me, but having emptied the conterts into his own dish passed it back again. Once more a plate with something on it was within my reach, and 1 was preparing to eat, when the waiter who had unreasonably accused me of gluttony pounced upon the plate and bore it off to some secret store house. Everyone but myself now appeared satisfied, and already the table was being cleared, and I was faint. To assist in the work of removing, my representative Maori spread out a pocket handkerchief, not over clean, on the table, and proceeded to place in it two fowls and one duck besides a knife and fork, and a quantity of mint sauce which he eyed contemplatively and apostrophised in the words “ Kapai, to-morrow morning.” That felonious parcel was placed alongside of me, and I was trembling lest the combative waiter should discover it and charge me, not only with designs upon a guinea’s worth'of food, but, with more reason, in attempting larceny. Contrary to the standing prohibitions of my medical advisers I was induced to drink a glass of wine to the toast of our royal guest My rashness was attended with the worst results. A few minutes more and the effects of the wine had carried me beyond the bounds of prudence. I have only an indistinct recollection of being removed raving on a stretcher by two policemen, and passing in the grounds a young man smoking a cigar and imparting to a companion his opiniou that the whole affair (meaning evidently the ball, but more particularly I should think, the supper) was a rotten affair, a sentiment in which the other acquiesed, and in which I stated my entire concurrence. On my return to the hotel—it was something over 48 hours’ afterwards - hatless and shawlless, and with the miserable conviction that my name had appeared in the newspapers as having been committed in default of a payment of a miserable 10s, I was prepared for the worst. It is saying little that I was admonished. I believe that if the yearly income—limited though it be —were otherwise than firmly settled on myself, a judicial separation would have followed. Suffice it to say that I had a brain fever. I had also a dim remembrance of being laid along with our boxes by an indignant landlord on the edge of the footpath, and afterwards of enduring a series of spadtnodic heavings by which 1 concluded we were at sea, till, on consciousness returning, I found myself at home.