I came to write this same Arabic story, but my version was about a man that put a piece of bread above the meat grill hopping the smoke/taste will stick to it. The restaurant owner was a stingy person who saw a chance to take advantage of a poor man, for me it seems that the "free rider" is the restaurant owner who wanted to price the free smoke and if the judge was corrupted or stupid this man would become the inventor of capitalism before it was invented.
