Yesterday, while walking the dog at 5:20 in the morning, I saw something interesting on the dark sidewalk near our condo. It was a 20 Deutschmark bank note. I picked it up, think I had made a neat find.

Later, on my way to work in better light, I saw some stuff in the grass nearby: plastic cards for Price Club and a couple of airlines, as well as a handful of tickets that looked to be for the Paris Metro. I took these back into the house and parked them next to the banknote (kissing my dreams of ownership to _that_ goodie farewell--the cards all had one name on them).

After work, while walking the dog again, I found some business cards further up the walk--same name. He was with a company that deals in display systems. I called, and the guy was still in.

He came to retrieve his stuff, and I showed him where each item was found. He lives in Paris, but spends 3 weeks of each month in a small apartment here. He had had his car broken into and two bags taken, apparently by kids. In addition to dropping banknotes, they also threw out his plane tickets for the next 2 months and some other odds and ends easily convertible to cash. He was most worried about the laptop, particularly about the data in it, but that is something the police may be able to find.

When he left, he gave us a box from his firm. "This is to thank you," he said. "Please don't open it until I've gone."

I'm glad he told us that, because I would have had to lie ("I can't possibly accept this!") had he been there when I found the bottle of cognac.

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