Elopement à la Gasoline

Gibson stages a hotel-lobby confrontation in crisp cross-hatching: a lean, balding proprietor holds his register like a magistrate's warrant while two young women — bundled in heavy traveling coats, one clutching a muff — stand caught and sheepish before him. A seated woman to the left looks on with amused complicity; a maid peers from the doorway at right. The title's gasoline pun signals the automobile as accomplice — these women have motored off unchaperoned, the car enabling a modern escape. Gibson's handling emphasizes the desk man's officious demeanor against the women's presence. The comedy centers on the clash between upper-middle-class proprieties and the new century's mobility.