The real malady from which Mlle. Lenglen was suffering was an overdose of publicity. They tell me that, at the time of the Olympic games in Belgium, the French star had begun to believe that the rest of the firmament where she was not was a comparatively dull affair.
One day, at Antwerp, she arrived at the stadium without her ticket of admission. To the gatekeeper who held out his mit for the accustomed cardboard, she said with freezing hauteur, “I am the great Lenglen.” I don’t know what the gatekeeper did; I suppose he dropped dead and was carried out by the heels; but anyhow, that is what she said.
When she arrived in America, the little French girl did a very foolish thing. She gave out an interview loftily pooh-poohing all the American stars—especially Molla Bjurstedt Mallory, whom she said she had defeated without trying.
Now it happens that Molla is a sweet, kind-hearted, unaffected, courageous little Norwegian girl. She was a professional masseuse when she came to America; but disarmed the snobbery of the Newport tennis set by her good sportsmanship.
She read the catty remarks that Lenglen had said about her and she came out on the tennis courts at Forest Hills looking for blood. The dander of her Norse Viking ancestors was up. The way she lit into the French girl filled the latter with dismay. In the face of the tornado, the “great Lenglen” retired shivering to the back courts and straightway developed a sensational cough.
At the end of the first set, she threw up her hands and quit cold, leaving the courts in tears. Molla retired from the battle in high dignity; but as soon as the club house doors closed upon her, she was almost smothered by the kisses and hugs of the other girl tennis players who had gathered for the tournament. Mlle. Lenglen during her brief stay of two days had managed to make herself thoroughly unpopular.
It is predicted that the other French champion, Carpentier, will not be basking in quite such a halo of hero worship when he comes back again, next winter, to fight Tom Gibbons.
Georges made a gallant and inspiring fight against Jack Dempsey but, around the neighborhood, they were not quite so strong for him.
It is certainly an awful thing to contemplate; but if the new picture censors of New York have their way, the world is due to be a lonely void without any one-piece bathing suit girls.
The first thing they did on taking office recently was to throw out the picture of some Dallas, Texas, young ladies who won the prizes for having the best—well, y’ know—bathing suits and so on.