AUBURN – Tuesday morning, walking the aisles of The Home Depot looking for a trailer part, a man’s wallet caught Gil Steward’s eye. It was on the floor, stuffed with almost $1,000 in $100s and $50s.

Thursday morning, Steward was back, shopping at Home Depot to replace a blown-out Christmas light when his eyes fell on a green money bag. It was also on the floor, also stuffed with money.

Same store, same time of day. Both returned to men who didn’t know they’d dropped the money.

Steward and his wife could hardly believe the odds.

“He thinks he’s being tested,” said Dee Steward, who’d joked with her husband Thursday before his latest trip to the hardware store: If you find any money, bring some home.

Steward, a longtime salesman at Central Maine Powersports, first went to The Home Depot at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday. He spied the wallet on the floor and, opening it to find a name on a license, found it was filled with big bills.

“I took it up to the service counter and went about my business. I heard them page the guy,” Steward said.

Five to 10 minutes later, while he was still shopping the aisles, Steward said a young man in his 20s approached him and thanked him profusely.

“He said his home payment was in there and money for Christmas, of course,” Steward said. “I’m glad I found it. Had somebody else found it, they may have just kept going.”

Phil Kimball, a Home Depot department head, said it’s not unusual to see customers doing good by each other.

“The associate who dealt with it thought that was very nice,” Kimball said.

Wallet returned to its rightful owner, Steward went about his week and found himself back at Home Depot at 7:30 a.m. Thursday.

He spotted the green money bag on the floor with a vending company name on its side. Steward took the bag to the service counter and later saw a man from that same company pushing a cart full of soda through the door.

“I said, ‘Are you missing something by any chance?’ He said no. He went back to his vehicle and (the money bag) wasn’t there,” Steward said. “He did say, ‘Thank you.'”

He wondered if the man would have lost his job or been docked pay.

That it could happen twice in three days had to be a fluke, Steward said. Still, “I think I’m going to play the lottery this weekend.”