ubi caritas

I remember sitting at the fire with Aunty Marie on a stormy winter evening late last year.
She said: "I saw Ronald O'Dowd trying to thumb a lift to Newbridge in the rain today."
I nodded and asked: "What did you do?"
The Aunt eyed me keenly.
"I gave him a lift of course," sez she.
Her answer provoked an exclamation from me, of mild amazement that she would stop for him. I knew he was a fairly rough and ready character.
Rough and ready in the sense that he was involved with drug dealing in the area.
In ten years of seeing him at the side of the road in rain or shine, I've never given him a lift.
The Aunt considered my reservations thusly expressed.
"Ah he's not that bad," she mused.
I snorted and enquired as to what had happened during the journey.
"Well," sez she, "nothing really."
I persisted in my quest for details. I did not believe nothing had happened.
"Okay," sez she, "when we got to Newbridge I told him, here we are now, and he leaned over and asked me did I want to buy some hash."
I laughed long and loud and hearty at this gem.
When I'd regained control I enquired: "And what did you say to him?"
"I said no," replied the Aunt primly.
And there our story ends.