One man’s good deed proved especially significant for another after businessman Rammy Smith tracked down the owner of a lost wallet that turned out to be packed with cash.

The wallet, which had dropped out of a pocket on Spurling Hill early yesterday, belonged to a local man whose trip to the US wouldn’t have gone far without it.

“The ‘thank you’ that I got, money couldn’t buy ­— it made my day,” said Mr Smith, who spotted the wallet in the road as he headed into the city at 5am to pick up a newspaper.

Its owner, who had been heading back into his workplace to pick up his passport, hadn’t even been aware of that the wallet — containing nearly $4,000 in US cash ­— had slipped out from his coat pocket in the rain.

There was no phone number inside but Mr Smith said he had tracked the man down using the licence in the wallet, with some help from his friends.

Protecting the owner’s privacy, Mr Smith said he’d met up with “a guy about my age, somebody I’d never seen before”.

When they met up, the man seemed “dazed” after almost losing his cash and credit cards.

“He said, ‘I don’t even need to count the money’,” added Mr Smith, who recalled a stranger returning his cell phone after he lost it at Warwick Long Bay. He said he wouldn’t have accepted a reward.

“I could have used that cash,” he laughed, adding: “I’ve got three teenage daughters — it’s good to set an example. Everybody I know these days could have used that cash.

“I’m an eternal optimist and I always say the glass is half full, but it’s tough out there. If that had been me I’d have hoped that somebody returned it.”