Chicago
If he was a tramp, he was a fairly well-dressed one. I visited the wonderful city of Chicago a few months ago and found a genuine jazz/blues club to take in some of the city flavour. I stepped outside for a cigarette and was a approached by this fellow who asked, very politely, if he could have a cigarette. When he found out I was English he asked how I was enjoying the city and so on. I knew that such chit-chat was leading up to being asked for change.
After a bit of banter and cementing of Anglo-American relations he said "Look buddy, I ain't gonna lie to you. I really need a shot of Jack Daniels. Can you spare some change?", to which I gave him a few dollars I happened to have in my pocket.
Okay, so he was probably saving up for crack or something but I found him to be a nice guy, completely non-threatening and I couldn't argue with his original approach to begging. And it made a great anecdote. My "so there I was in the middle of Paris at midnight looking for somewhere to buy cigarettes" one is getting a bit worn now...
(Ghostlight, Fri 3 Jul 2009, 9:54, 3 replies)

No Englishman would utter such a sentence as -
"Look buddy, I ain't gonna lie to you. I really need a shot of Jack Daniels. Can you spare some change?".
( Larry Vest One day at a time, sweet Jesus, FFS., Fri 3 Jul 2009, 10:10, closed)

Erm...I think the narrator was English,
and the kindly gentleman was American.
(TheColonel, Mon 6 Jul 2009, 17:13, closed)

Well...
...you shouldn't have given him the cash. He was probably lying to you and would have only spent it on food...
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Sat 4 Jul 2009, 9:05, closed)