A Ragged-Trousered Philanthropist

I was on my way home.  As I came into the lobby and pressed for the lift to attend me, a man came striding out of the stairwell, and strode past me to the front door.  He seemed intent on ignoring me.  Well, you can't have that, can you?  I mean, maybe he wasn't supposed to be there: he has to have some sense that people recognise each other around here, and might remember him later.  "Good evening," I said, loudly.  He looked at me a little startled, and strode on. 

"Oh, well," I thought, looking after him, "a little-friendly wouldn't hurt".

Then I noticed his trousers.  They were hanging below his bottom.  Just so you're clear, this revealed his underpants, and nothing else.  In particular, it didn't reveal the back-end of a pair of braces.  So how were they being held up?  Just as I was contemplating a rugby-tackle-style test of their security, the lift arrived.  I got in, thus depriving myself of any practical evidence to support my theorising.

Theorising on the nature of trouser-levitating technology: what else is there to do in a lift, apart from admiring one's self in the mirror thoughtfully provided for that purpose?  And theorising based on almost no evidence at all is a common activity of mine, as any of my friends will be quick to tell you.

"Perhaps," I thought, "he had been caught 'in flagrante', and was actually clutching his trousers in front of him, maintaining full-frontal dignity during flight".  Then I realised that the underpants would probably not be present at all in those circumstances, certainly not fully raised.  And there would likely have been someone in pursuit.  Perhaps he had been expressing some extreme criticism outside someone's door, and was now in flight.  But that was ditto for the pants.

Then it struck me that it was jolly cold outside.  I would have been most unhappy to, if you'll pardon the word, expose those parts of myself to those sorts of temperatures.  I resolved this difficulty by recalling that he was young.  So there was some evidence: the temperature, and his youth.  I deduced that this was a stupid fashion statement.  It is a reasonable deduction that a young person would be willing to freeze their bottom off if they thought they looked 'good'.  They could have had a 'dungaree-style' halter front, hung round his neck.  It was philanthropy: he was just giving us a good laugh.

The lift had reached my floor.  And I had reached my answer.