The author of this farce hath placed himself in the first section of the second chapter of that treatise on “Dramatic Casualties” which hath helped to make “Punch” the oracle of wit and of wisdom he has become to the entire intelligence of the land, from the aristocracy upwards22. Punch, No. 11 page 131.. In this instance he is truly one who “writeth a farce or comedy and neglecteth to introduce jokes in the same.” But this we hope will prove a solitary instance of such neglect; for when he next inditeth, may he show that he is not the “Wrong Man” to write a good piece; although alas, he appeared on Saturday last to be exactly the right man for penning a bad one.
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 facetiæ 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 Beechwood—a very considerably diluted edition of Jerry Bumps in “Turning the Tables”—who determines to revenge this early turn-out by a trick upon the inhospitable host, and goes off to develop it—to commence, in fact, the farce.
Sir Bryan Beausex is waiting with impatience the arrival of Patty, when his servant enters with a letter, which he says has been just delivered by a servant, who galloped up to the door on a horse—an extraordinary clever hack, we should say; for, to perform this feat, he must have broken through a porter’s lodge, galloped over a smooth pavement, and under a roof so low, that Lord Burghersh can only traverse it with his hat off. We should like to see a horse-race in the Albany avenue! The letter thus so cavalierly brought, contains news of an accident that has happened to Miss Fringe, and summons Beausex’s immediate presence. Off he goes, and on comes Beechwood with a “Ha! ha! ha!, fairly hoaxed,” and all that; which is usually laughed and said by hoaxers of hoaxees.
It has happened that Mr. Tack, the upholsterer, having had a peep at the contents of the cocked-hat billet, addressed to Mistress Smart, conceives a violent fit of jealousy, and having also Beausex’s custom, has the range of his house as well as that of Miss Fringe. So by this time we naturally find him behind Sir Bryan’s window-curtains, to witness the interview between him and the future Mrs. Tack; that is to say, if she prove not false.
Things approach to a crisis. Miss Fringe enters, but brings with her Alice, the young lady whose infant heart was betrothed to Beausex. She, taking the place of Patty Smart, goes through a dialogue with Beechwood instead of Beausex; and we now learn that the former christens the farce, he being the “Wrong Man.” Somewhere near this point of the story the first act ends.
The second act is occupied in clearing up the mistakes which the audience know all about already; but those among them who had, up to about the middle of it, been waiting with exemplary patience for the jokes, began to get tired of having nothing to laugh at, and hissed. Despite these noisy drawbacks, however, we were able to find out that Beausex loses his cousin Alice and her fortune (a regular farce fortune—some five or six hundred thousand pounds or so); for she falls in love with Beechwood, and vice versa. Tack and Patty Smart are rendered happy; but what really becomes of Beausex and his aunt the sibilants forbad our knowing. We suppose, by Mr. Bartley’s pantomime, that Sir Bryan puts up with his hoax and his lady-loss with a good grace; for he flourished about his never-absent pocket-handkerchief with one hand, shook hands with Miss Fringe with the other, stepped forward, did some more dumb show to the dissentients, and, with the rest of the actors, bowed down the curtain.
We perceive by the Times that the author of the “Wrong Man” is not so very culpable after all. He is guiltless of the plot; that being taken from a French piece called “Le Tapissier.”