A Workman's Honesty

One of the mine workers in America lost his wallet during work. In the wallet were a sum of dollars and his identity card. And it so happened that a shipment of coal was carried to Italy, and the wallet was in it.

Seven months later, a poor Italian workman was feeding the furnace of a factory with coal when he came upon the wallet. The sum it contained was a real treasure to this poor workman: for months he had been trying in vain to save, out of his slender wage, the price of a bicycle to ride between his distant home and the factory! But when he examined the identity card and learned that the owner of the wallet was an American workman, he went, after finishing his work, to the police station and handed it over; and the officer delivered it to the American Embassy.

The management of the American mine so admired the honesty of the Italian workman that it invited him to be its guest in America for a few weeks, and sent him the expenses of the journey... And when the term of his stay came to its end, the mine workers collected a sum of money with which they bought a bicycle, and presented it to him as a gift.