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I clutched onto the ten dollar note and walked down 42nd Street towards Grand Central Station. "Watch where you're going" scowled the stranger who knocked against me. "Sorry!" I chirped whilst holding up my empty hands in an apologetic defiance. I briskly walked towards the subway station and entered it. After three weeks in New York, I was down to 50 dollars which had to be spread across the next seven days until the end of my training. When it was my turn to pay the dues at the MetroCard machine, I reached into my coat pockets. My chubby fingers clutched onto the subway card and a strawberry Arcor candy. The ten dollar bill was missing. Frantically, I patted myself down with the hope that the note was stuck to the traditional Kandyan sari I was wearing under my coat. Unable to find the money, I stepped to the side and rummaged through my purse. My mind flashed back to the final moment in which I held the ten dollar bill. It was whilst walking down the road. Before the stranger knocked against me. Had I dropped it on the road? I darted back into the street and ran up and down the sidewalk looking for the bill. I was stranded in New York city without money and a local cell phone connection. The only recourse was the kindness of a stranger. "Excuse me" I asked a passerby who avoided me. "Please may I borrow......" I said to another who looked the other way. Whilst I was turning to and fro, a gold toothed street vendor walked upto to me and asked in a hoarse voice "You okay?" Not really" I remarked in a quavering voice and narrated the series of unfortunate events. The gold toothed stranger removed his beanie and scratched his balding head. "Well that is quite a situation you are in." "Yes" I replied almost in tears. "Don't you mind! Come let's have a hot dog" "No thank you! I am not hungry" I lied. "My name is Sorin and I sell mustard dogs. And everyone who tries them say they are the best. So you have to try one." When we reached the cart, Sorin assembled a mustard hot dog which he then placed on my hand. As I bit into the savoury bun, he pulled out a ten dollar note from his money till and extended it towards me. I stared at the gold toothed hot dog seller. He stared at me. "Take it!" Sorin said breaking the silence. "No I can't! You are too kind" I stuttered. "Listen. No one else is going to give you free money in this big city. People are too distracted with their own problems to listen to yours. So take it and get home." "I won't be able to pay you back Sorin. I have just enough to last the next few days." "Well I guess you will have to pay me back the next time you are in New York." I took the money and tucked it safely into my purse. I looked at the pale aging face of Sorin and asked "Why are you doing this?" "The thing is I migrated to the USA from Romania twenty years ago on a visitor visa and never left the country. I know what it is like to be a broke foreigner in New York City." Lost for words, I bowed my head in gratitude and thanked him incessantly. "Oh you don't need to thank me! There is a famous saying in Romania 'Cu picătura se face ploaia'." he said in a melodic tone. "In English it means 'every little helps'. So I want to be kind to others even in the smallest way possible." "Thank you Sorin!" I said and shook his hand. Sorin's face bore a sunny smile. "Well you should go home. Come say hello tomorrow." I visited him everyday until I left USA. Though I have not seen him again, every hot dog I have savoured since is a warm reminder of Sorin, the gold toothed hot dog seller who is changing the world a hot dog and a ten dollar note at a time.