2] Punch, No. 11 page 131.

When a playwright produces a plot whose incidents are just within the
possibilities, and far beyond the probabilities, of this life, it is said
to be "ingenious," because of the crowd of circumstances that are huddled
into each scene. According to this acceptation, the "Wrong Man" would be a
highly ingenious farce; if that may be called a farce from which the
remotest semblance of facetiae is scrupulously excluded. Proceed we,
therefore, to an analysis of the fable with becoming gravity.

At the outset we are introduced to a maiden lady in (_horresco referens!_)
her private apartment; but to save scandal, the introduction is not made
without company--there is also her maid. _Patty Smart_, although not a new
servant, has chosen that precise moment to inform her mistress concerning
the exact situation of her private circumstances, and the precise state of
her heart. She is in love: it is for _Simon Tack_ that the flame is kept
alive; he, a dapper upholder, upholds her affections. At this point, a
triangular note is produced, which plainly foretells a dishonourable
rival. You are not deceived; it proposes an assignation in that elysium of
bachelors and precipice of destruction for young ladies, the Albany.
Wonderful to relate, it is from _Miss Thomasina Fringe's_ nephew, _Sir
Bryan Beausex_. The maiden dame is inconceivably shocked; and to show her
detestation of this indelicate proposal, agrees to personate _Patty_ and
keep the appointment herself, for the pleasure of inflicting on her nephew
a heap of mortification and a moral lecture. _Mr. Tack_ is the next
appearance: being an upholsterer, of course he has the run of the house,
so it is not at all odd to find him in a maiden lady's boudoir; the more
especially as he enters from behind his natural element--the window
curtains.

It is astonishing with what pertinacity the characters in most farces will
bore one with their private affairs when they first appear! In this
respect _Sir Bryan Beausex_, in the next scene, is quite as bad as _Patty_
was in the former one. He seems to have invited four unoffending victims
to dine at his chambers in the Albany, on purpose to inform them that in
his youth he was betrothed to a girl whom he has never since seen; but
what that has to do with telling his guests to be off, because he expects
a charming little lady's-maid at six, his companions are doubtless puzzled
to understand. One of them, however, is _