A poor traveller stopped under a tree to eat the boiled rice and vegetables which he had brought with him. A few yards away, there was a small shop by the side of the road where a woman was frying fish and selling it to travellers who were able to afford to pay for it. This woman watched the poor traveller carefully, and when he finished his food and began to go, she shouted rudely, 'You have not paid me for the fried fish!'
'But I have not had any fried fish!' he said.
'But everyone can see that you enjoyed the smell of my fried fish with your rice and vegetables,' argued the woman. 'If you had not smelled the fish, your meal would not have been so pleasant!'
Soon a crowd collected, and although they supported the poor traveller, they had to admit that the wind was blowing from the shop to the place where he had eaten, and that it had carried the smell of the fried fish to him.
Finally, the woman took the poor traveller to a judge, who said, 'The woman says that the traveller ate his meal with the smell of her fried fish. The traveller agrees that the wind was blowing from the woman's shop to the place where he ate his rice and vegetables and that it carried the smell of her fried fish to his nose while he was eating, so he must pay for it. What does your fried fish cost?' he asked the woman.
'Twenty-five cents a plate,' she answered, delighted.
'Then go outside together,' said the judge. 'There the traveller must hold up a twenty-five-cent piece so that its shadow falls on the woman's hand. The price of the smell of a plate of fried fish is the shadow of twenty-five cents.'