"What I meant was more free value than free money per se, but I suppose I was unclear on that. But then in a way Bar gives out free value anyway, given the difference in cost between buying a gadget and taking it home and reverse-engineering it and funding the R&D work to develop it independently."

"Bar is lovely. And bound by seemingly arbitrary rules imposed by a mysterious outside force."

"I'm not sure they're arbitrary. They seem designed to prevent her from being too generous. A genuinely arbitrary rule would say she could sell anything but fudge and earmuffs and that she had to take half a subjective hour off if someone walked in from a place where it was Tuesday. Mysterious outside force, though, yes, I'm puzzled about that."

"Seemingly arbitrary in the sense that there isn't an obvious reason to prevent her from being generous."

"Yes. But it's oriented around something goal-shaped."

"Arbitrary and random aren't quite the same thing."

"As you like. Someone whose goal is to prevent Bar from being generous and can enforce that at all concerns me, and I'm only glad they aren't especially good at it. She confided in me that she will do small amounts of arbitrage for people who really need it; I simply don't qualify by any stretch of the imagination."

"Neither do we. All things considered I'm gladder than not."

"Oh, of course. It's a little curious that this is an exception to the rule that capital is the best tool for generating more."

Shrug.