ELOPEMENTS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1685, 15 June 1904, Page 17

ELOPEMENTS

MOTOR-CAR ADVENTURES

FRENCH LO VERS WHO FLEE FROM IRATE PARENTS.

Another.. Paris girl has eloped in & motor-car. She might perfectly well have taken a cab in this case, or gone off with the Lothario on foot, but the new locomotion was introduced into the adventure to give it zest.

She was a blanchisseuse de fin, but had wearied even of laundry-work as a fine art. Walking from her mother’s shop in Ternes, down the Avenue Niel, with a basket of linen slung on her arm she stopped when she reached an appointed trysting-place on the kerbstone, and there waited.

A 40-horse power motor-car dashed, up, with a fascinating young man at the steering-wheel. “Ah, it is thou,” exclaimed the chauffeur and the girl in one breath. She dropped her basket on the payment and vaulted into the motorcar, and the lovers were off at a fun* ious pace, which was perfectly unnecessary, for no one dreamt of pursing them. -

However, they had the sensation of flying from an inexorable father, and that was all they wished for. Foitunnately for the customers whose linen lay in the basket, a policeman picked up the latter and took it back to the girl’s mother, having found a note addressed to her pinned on the top of the clothes. The letter said that the girl had had enough of even the finest ironing, and had flown to a more brilliant sphere of life.

Louis Vaudoyer, a motor driver, ia coming out as a specialist in automobile elopements, according to the Paris “New. York Herald.” He piloted the car in which Dr Marcille some time ago carried off the girl who afterwards became . the up-to-date Lochinvar’s bride, ■ and which was hired out by Madame Bob Walter, a music hall performer, who has gone into the motor business. Now the same chauffeur has helped

another pair of runaway lovers. He received orders to be in "readiness with his car on a certain road near Pan at 5 o’clock on a recent Saturday morning. He was given a photograph of a girl described as fairly tall, beautiful, eighteen years of age, and slight of figure. His instructions were to. wait at the given place until the girl, whom lie would recognise by the picture, appeared at a gate leading to the Chateau du Boisson, where, apparently, her stern parents live, to assist her into the car, and to drive off instantly at full speed to a cross-road, where, .by a big tree, the lover would be standing. The plan was duly carried out, every-*’ thing worked smoothly, no irate brother pursued the lovers with a gun, and the pair, meeting safely, were driven by Vandoyer as fast as the car would go over tlie. Spanish frontier to San Sebastian, where they are now said to be.

Louis Vaudoyer, the driver of the motor, has furnished a full and true account of the Paris elopement to the owner of the car, Madame Bob Walter, who makes a speciality of hiring out machines for runaway couples. The driver says the girl is a blonde of 18, rather tall, and very pretty. He does not know her name, and that of the man is kept dark.

The police very nearly caught the runaway couple at Mont de Marsan, having apparently, though that is not explained, been informed by the parents in double-quick time. According to the driver, the enterprising wooer is a wealthy American. Vaudoyer enjoys elopements, because ha has a soft place in his heart for loving couples, and also because enamoured gentlemen are open-handed, and tip him with several louis when he drives them.

Madame Bob Walter, who, by-the-way, is writing her automobiling memoirs from the day when M. Serpollet first took her out in a vehicle like a tractionengine with a gigantic chimney, says that her latest undertaking in elopements was an exceptionally tioklish affair, because she knew that the girl’s brother lias a motor-car of his own, of 100-horse-power. The runaway lovers are going to get married as soon as. possible. The moral of the tale, as drawn |by Madame Bob Walter, is that the civilising influence of The automobile is spreading; as it is becoming a match-making machine). -