M.O.M.

Fiction ~ short story
Published December 1915
Approx. 3,600 words
(First read 26/12/1994)

M.O.M. bears a passing resemblance to Saki's earlier Filboid Studge (1910): it tells the tale of a young chap who invents a wonder drug ('My Own Mixture') which, he claims, will cure everything from gout to intemperance, in spite ~ or more likely because ~ of its vile taste.  And lo! he makes a killing with it.  That's all there is to it, really.  Benson seems to have had a particular interest in, and slightly ambiguous attitude toward, the plethora of fads that were apparently the order of the day in late Victorian and Edwardian Britain ~ just think Lucia'n'Daisy with their gurus, their callisthenics and all the rest of it.  Sadly only available in Fine Feathers and Other Stories (1994).  Well, perhaps not all that sadly ~ it's not really up to much.