"GOING, GOING, GONE."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 77, 31 March 1928, Page 10

"GOING, GOING, GONE."

SOME TENSE MOMENTS. "XJSGAXi TENDER" FOR MORTGAGE. BANK TO THE RESCUE. (By Telegraph—Own Correspondent.) MORRIN S VILLE, Friday.

Some tense moments were experienced by a Morrinsville solicitor a few days ago and the oft-quoted phrase, "Time's the essence of the contract," came near demonstration. A certain property was to be auctioned on behalf of the second mortgagee at 11 o'clock, and a few minutes before it was decided by the seller's solicitors that "legal tender" only would be accepted from those who stood in the unhappy position of mortgagors. Fifteen minutes to go and the profferer of "legal tender" was all out to win the race. It takes time to collect even a five pound note from a bank, but when three cyphers are added it takes considerably longer.

"Give me what you have handy," was the request to the bank, "and I'll stave them off until reinforcements arrive." It was one minute to eleven when the solemn voice of the mortagor's solicitor was heard: "Fifty," "one hundred," "one hundred and fifty"—an anxious glance to see if the bundle would hold out, and then "two hundred ..." With much thumb-licking and laborious effort two thousand was reached without mishap, and a heartfelt sigh of relief went up as a brisk footstep was heard and reinforcements arrived.

A part of the little melodrama is that the first bank to receive the S.O.S. was unable to fill the sudden demand within the given time, and resort had to be made to other financing institutions. | Meanwhile the profferer of legal tender [was like Wellington of old. He prayed I "for Blucher or night"; and was probably the happiest man in town when the | munitions of finance arrived and he was able to satisfy the mortgagee.