THE WRONG SHOES OUTSIDE A DOOR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19236, 25 November 1930, Page 7

THE WRONG SHOES OUTSIDE A DOOR.

MESSAGE GOES ASTRAY: WOMAN THROWN IN LAKE (Special to the “ Star.”) LONDON. October 15. An elderly woman with a sad face appeared in a Berlin court yesterday to demand damages from a young man who had thrown her into the lake in the Tiergarten, Berlin’s Hyde Park. The man admitted that he had thrown the woman into the lake, but pleaded that he had acted under extreme provocation. He explained with a blush that he had fallen in love with a beautiful girl who was staying in the same hotel as he was. He had thought of nothing but violet eyes and golden curls, but every effort he made to approach her had been coldly repulsed. Defendant said he had waited at the door of her room in vain, for the girl refused even to give him a glance when she left it. Then, early one morning, there appeared a tiny pair of shoes before the door, and he wrote an appeal to the cold beauty on their soles. What he did not know was that the girl had changed her room, and that the shoes belonged to the elderly woman who now faced him in court. The elderly woman, poor thing, was fascinated when she read on one sole. “I adore you,” and on the other, “ Five to-day at the waterfall.” She denned her prettiest dress and was at the rendezvous at the appointed time. The young man was already there, and the anxious, expectant look on his face left no doubt in her mind that he was the lover who had writ ten on her dainty soles. “ Here I am! ” she said, rushing up. “ The wonderful words written on my shoes . . .” She got no farther. The young man, certain that he was the victim of a cruel' hoax, threw the woman straight into the water. She demanded compensation for her pretty dress and her injured feelings, and, in spite of all explanations of his psychic state, the young man was condemned to pay.