A crook

While I was shopping in Washington, D.C., I went into a restaurant and asked the man at the counter for a glass of orange juice. He said his cash register was broken and he could not make change.

The orange juice cost 59 cents and all I had was a dollar bill. So I said, “That’s all right. Please give me the orange juice and just keep the change.”

The man said, “No, I can’t do that.” Then he looked at me and said, “But you are a nice man, so I'll do it.” Then he gave me a doughnut and said, “Here, you eat this. Then it comes to almost a dollar.”

I said, “No, I don’t want a doughnut.” But he insisted that I take it.

While I was there another man came in — a nice-looking gentleman, tall and stout, wearing glasses. He also only had a dollar bill. But the man at the counter wouldn’t give him anything. He pointed to me and said, “I only did it for him because he’s a nice man.”

As the stout gentleman was leaving, the man said to me, “I think he’s a crook!”

— 18 July 1987

From:Sri Chinmoy,The world-experience-tree-climber, part 6, Agni Press, 1994
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/we_6