“Twenty-five years ago,” said Mr. Filley, “boy; three dollars a week in an architect’s office; spent two-fifty of them, two weeks running, for flowers for that young lady when she played her first engagement in New Haven. Walked there. Paid the other fifty cents to get into the theatre. Lived on apples the rest of the week. Every boy does it. Never forgets it. Place always remains soft.” And, as Mrs. Fortescue sat and looked long and earnestly at the picture, a soft color came into her face that was born rather of memory than of her love for acting; and yet it wonderfully simulated youth and fresh beauty and a young joy in life. “THE MAN WITH THE PINK PANTS.” This is a tale of pitiless and persistent vengeance, and it shows by what simple means a very small and unimportant person may bring about the undoing of the rich, great and influential. It was told to me by my good friend, the Doctor, as we strolled through the pleasant suburbs of a pretty little city that is day by day growing into greatness and ugliness, as what they call a manufacturing centre. We had been watching the curious antics of a large man who would have attracted attention at any time on account of his size, his luxuriant hair and whiskers, and the strange condition of the costly clothing he wore--a frock-coat and trousers of the extremest fashion, a rolling white waist-coat, gray-spatted patent-leathers, and a silk hat. But all these fine articles of apparel were much soiled in places, his coat-collar was half turned up, the hat had met with various mishaps, his shoes were scratched and dusty, his cravat ill-tied, and altogether his appearance suggested a puzzling combination of prosperity and hard luck. His doings were stranger than his looks. He tacked cautiously from side to side of the way, peered up a cross-street here; went slowly and cautiously up another for a few yards, only to return and to efface himself for a moment behind a tree or in a doorway. Suddenly he gave signs of having caught sight of somebody far up a narrow lane. Promptly bolting into the nearest front yard, he got behind the syringa bush and waited patiently until another man, smaller, but much more active, hurried sharply down the lane, glancing suspiciously around. This second person missed seeing the big man, and after waiting irresolutely a moment or two, he hailed a street-car going toward the town. At the same time another car passed him going in the opposite direction. With incredible agility, the large man darted from behind the syringa bush and made the second car in the brief second the little man’s back was turned. Swinging himself inside, the figures on the rear platform promptly concealed him from view, and as he was whirled past us we could distinctly hear him emit a tremendous sigh or puff of profound relief.