This reminds me of an old folk tale of the trickster and the rich man.<p>A king passing through a town finds a man about to be punished for fraud. He intercedes and asks what the matter is. The trickster says in his defence, "I ask people for things, and they give then to me". The king is incredulous but poses a challenge: "You must ask and receive money from the richest man in town." The trickster agrees, but being short on assets, requests a loan. The king obliges, and the trickster arranges (eliding details) to induce the town's richest resident to provide him with a wealth of goods. He returns to the king two days later with evidence in tow. The king is impressed by this demonstration, at which the trickster notes that he'd actually met the conditions 48 hours earlier when the king, wealthier than the town's richest resident, had offered him a loan.<p>There's something to those old stories.<p>(I'm not positive of the source but believe it's included in Idries Shah's <i>World Tales</i>.)