HONESTY?IS?THE?BEST?POLICY! That is the motto that has directed Arthur Ince’s life, so when he found a purse yesterday morning, he didn’t think twice about giving it back to the owner.
Ince, a Bajan-Canadian who is here on holiday, found the purse on the sidewalk while he was walking along Princess Alice Highway, St Michael.
“I took it up and decided to take it to a police station, but I?was passing the Nation on Fontabelle so I took it there and gave it to a woman at the desk and asked her if she could find the owner,” said Ince, who admitted that he did not even look inside the purse.
That woman turned out to be customer experience clerk, Dawn Moore, who upon checking the purse for some form of identification, found an employee card for Courtesy Garage with the name Patricia Clarke on it.
Moore said she called Courtesy and was informed that Clarke was on holiday.
“I asked the person who answered the phone to contact her and tell her to call the Nation Publishing Company as soon as possible,” Moore added.
By then Clarke had gone to a business place to make a purchase when she discovered that her purse was missing. She was frantically trying to retrace her steps with her sister Cynthia King, after thoroughly checking her car.
“I got a call from work telling me to call the NATION?but I?thought they were trying to reach me to tell me that I had won something, so I did not call right away. I went back to the Harbour Road looking for the purse and when I didn’t find it, I called the NATION?because I was in the area and the lady asked me if I had lost something. I told her my purse and she said she had it.”
When Clarke arrived at the NATION, Ince had just returned to check with Moore to find out if she had found the owner.
“There are still good people around,” Clarke gushed as she hugged and thanked Ince for returning the purse, which she said contained $700.
“I?was panicking and thinking that I?now had to go home and contact my bank and ask them to cancel my credit cards,” she said, adding that she had the cash for a specific purpose.
Ince, who was overjoyed that Clarke had been found, said he knew how she was feeling about losing her purse. He told a story of how a man took a photograph of his wife’s pin number and stole $10 000 from her account in ten minutes. When he discovered that it was a man who had assisted his wife that day, he chastised him for his dishonesty, Ince revealed.
“When I found the purse, a man was walking behind me and he kept asking me if I was really going to turn it in and if I?wasn’t going to check it. I told him I?am really turning it in, that it does not belong to me,” he added.
•mariabradshaw@nationnews.com
