The floor space, normally left clear, was now filled with a heterogeneous collection of seats. The Claires’ armchairs, looking mildly astonished at their own transplantation, were grouped together in the front row. They faced a temporarily erected stage which was decked out with tree-fern, exquisitely woven cloaks, Union Jacks and quantities of fly-blown paper streamers. On the back were hung coloured prints of three kings of England, two photographs of former premiers, and an enlargement of Rua as an MP. On the platform stood a hard-bitten piano, three chairs and a table bearing the insignia of all British gatherings, a carafe of untempting water and a tumbler.

The Maori members of the audience had been present more or less all day. They squatted on the floor, on the edge of the stage, on the permanent benches along the sides and all over the verandah and front steps.

Among them was Eru Saul. Groups of youths collected round Eru. He talked to them in an undertone. There was a great deal of furtive giggling and sudden guffaws. At intervals Eru and his following would slouch off together and when they returned the boys were always noiser and more excited. At seven o’clock Simon, Colly and Smith arrived with three more chairs from Wai-ata-tapu. Colly and Simon stood about looking self-conscious, but Smith was at once absorbed into Eru Saul’s faction.

‘Hey, Eru!’ said Smith, who had a pair of pumps in his pocket. ‘Do we wind up with a dance?’

‘No chance!’

‘No fear you don’t wind up with a dance,’ said a woman’s voice. ‘Last time you wind up with a dance you got tight. If you can’t behave yourselves you don’t have dances.’

‘Too bad,’ said Smith.

The owner of the voice was seated on the floor with her back against the stage. She was Mrs Te Papa, an old lady with an incredibly aristocratic head tied up in a cerise handkerchief. Over her European dress she wore, in honour of the occasion, a magnificent flax skirt. She was the leading great-grandmother of the hapu and, though she did not bother much about her title, a princess of the Te Rarawas. Being one of the last of the old regime she had a tattooed chin. From her point of vantage she was able to call full-throated greetings and orders to members of her clan as they drifted in and out or put the finishing touches to the decorations. She spoke always in Maori. If one of the younger fry answered her in English she reached forward and caught the offender a good-natured buffet. One of the oddities of contemporary Maori life may be seen in the fact that, although some of the people in outlying districts use a fragmentary and native-sounding form of English, yet they have only a rudimentary knowledge of their own tongue.