Father Delany was walking home after his
sermon late one night when he came upon this intoxicated tramp on the sidewalk. Wanting to
help, he asked the man, "Do you live here?"
"Yesh," the man slowly replied.
"Would you like me to help you
upstairs?" the father asked.
"Yesh," the man slowly sputtered.
When they got up on the second floor he
asked, "Is this your floor?"
"Yesh," again the man replied.
Then Father Delany got to thinking that
maybe he didn't want to face the man's irate wife because she may think he was the one who
got the man drunk. So, he opened the first door he came to and shoved him through it, then
went back downstairs.
But lo and behold when he went back
outside, there was another tramp lying on the sidewalk. So he asked that man, "Do you
live here?"
"Yesh."
"Would you like me to help you
upstairs?"
"Yesh."
So he did and put him in the same door with
the first tramp. Then went back downstairs, where, to his surprise, there was another
tramp.
So he started over to him. But before he
got to him, the tramp staggered over to a policeman and cried, "For God's sake,
offisher, protect me from thish man. He'sh been doing nothing all night long but takin' me
upstairsh and throwing me down the elevator shaft!"
