Many years ago, when I was in my mid-teens, I was on the Bakerloo line. The carriage wasn’t busy, just a guy sat across from me who I wasn’t paying any attention to.
You see, I was quite preoccupied with the thought of buying a bag of chips on the way home. A proper bag of chips from a proper chippy.
Then, a few stops from my destination, the man stood up, and where he was sat lay £1.40. A pound coin and two 20p’s. The precise amount I needed for a large bag of chips.
I looked at the £1.40. The £1.40 looked at me. The doors closed, and after a few moments’ pause, I reached over to collect the potato bounty.
A test of my moral compass. An ethical scandal. A moral quandary. All of which I had failed.
In my defence, I hadn’t really clocked the coins until he was just stepping off the tube so it would have been quite the effort* for me to reunite the currency with its official owner… but I think if we’re all being honest with each other, that money was destined, for me, to spend on chips.
And that I did.
* in those days, the Bakerloo line doors often opened while still moving, and only for a few seconds.