The Wrong Man

Article taken from The Lowell Daily Sun October 17, 1893.

"Isn't this my old friend Gabriel Comstock of Franklin Furnace?"  said the smiling young man approaching the stanger and extending his hand.

"No, sir" replied the stranger.  "My name is Thoman Easley, and I'm from Wheelersburg."

"I beg your pardon," rejoined the other politely, "but the resemblance is so extraordinary that I thought I could not be mistaken."

"That's all right.  There's no harm done," said the stranger, passing on.

A few minutes later he was accosted by anoither smiling young man who met him at a street corner and stopped in great apparent astonishment.

"Why, how are you, Tom?  Bless me, who would have thought of seeing you here?"

"Guess you're mistaken, young fellow."

"Mistaken? Not much!  I'd know you a mile off.  You're Thomas Easley of Wheelersburg.  Used to call you Tom when we were boys together"--

"No, you didn't.  My name isn't Easley, and I don't know where Wheelersburg is."

"You're not Tom Easley?"

"No, sir.  I never heard of Tom Easley.  My name is Absalom Reinhart, and I live in Greenup."

The smiling young man withdrew in evident perplexity.

"Must have got switched off on some other fellow," he mutered as he turned another corner.  "Buy it's all right.  Mr. Reinhart will do just as well."

Meantime the stranger pursued his way leisurely down the street, and five minutes later he was confronted by a third young man with an engaging smile.

"Hello!  Why, this is my old friend, Absalom Reinhart.  How are you, Ab?  How are things in Greenup?"

"I don't know you, sir.  My name is not Absalom Reinhart, and I don't know anything about Greenup.  Never heard of it in my life."

"Say!  Who are you anyhow?"

The stranger handed him his card.  It bore the following inscription: REV. BEN THAYER, Evangelist and Reformed Confidence Man.