Welcome to the forum Darryl,
I don’t normally post on threads like this, as I don’t usually feel I have anything constructive to say. But here I am … why? Because I’m totally confused. I don’t know where this is meant to be set, and it makes me feel I can’t locate you …
Don’t get me wrong … it basically reads like a P.G. Woodhouse type story is coming, or perhaps a Roald Dahl ‘sting-in-the-tail’ story, both of which I really enjoy. But there’s too much which swings back and forwards between Britain and America.
“Pomphrey”, “Blythe”, “Smithers”, even “Miss Bentley”, sound UK seaside boarding-house … names that Woodhouse or Dahl might have come up with, or Bill Bryson, perhaps even Saki in a less vicious moment; “Bluey Malone”, on the other hand, sounds American but with an out-of-place British “Marmaduke” in the middle. And I don’t for one minute believe a UK seaside boarding-house landlady in the 50s would have even heard of “chowder”, leave alone trying — however bizarre her cooking style — to serve “oyster chowder”; I don’t think such a person would talk about getting “prime ingredients” either. On the other hand, I’m happy to believe an American landlady might on both those counts. And who eats “stew” with a spoon?
Then there’s the spelling … “born” rather than “borne”, “mollusks” rather than “molluscs”. I find myself wondering if these are spelling mistakes, or American spellings, and so whether you — since your moniker here says you are actually in Japan — are perhaps an American trying to write British, but with the native American getting in the way, or what.
So the truth is, that, to me, while it promises very well in terms of story line, I would be put off by the questions assailing me from the language angle, and I’m afraid might well give up in irritation after a few pages.
But good luck; you have a good opening for a story there.
Mark
PS @ Vic-K: the “hairy miscreant”, a.k.a. the “whiskered wrongdoer”, is clearly the fork and spoon thrower, and for me there’s no immediate need to identify him further by a name, though do I wonder about the epithet in question.