Ruth Towse told Alex the following story from the opera world. When Samson and Delilah by Saint Saëns was staged by the Royal Opera House in London it included a large chorus. All chorus members had expensive fitted silk dresses. The woman playing Delilah at one point complained that her silk dress did not stand out enough from the other dresses. So they put the expensive dresses with the exception of Delilah's in a washing machine. The effect of washing silk in a washing machine was as expected. The point of whether Delilah was unreasonably demanding or right wasn't the issue; a small improvement had been bought at great expense. The expense was unnecessary because, according to Ruth, cheap dresses could have been made for the chorus members and the silk dresses could have been saved for a later occasion. The problem could have been solved for a lot less money. Plus had the designers been more cost-minded, they would have thought twice about having all the silk dresses looking exactly alike. What shocked Ruth was the total disregard for costs.

Alex's friend, Gerald, is a composer of contemporary classical music. When Gerald graduated from the conservatory, Alex heard the composition he’d written for his final exam, as performed by a large student orchestra. Alex enjoyed it a lot. Since then, Gerald has written three more pieces for a large orchestra. None of them have been performed yet. After that he has also written eight pieces for small ensembles, of which seven have been performed; some of them several times. So, compared to other young composers he is relatively successful. Alex observes that part of the trick must have been writing compositions that are less costly to perform. Gerald is furious, and begins a long involved story explaining how his reasons for writing for small ensembles were purely artistic. It was a ‘natural’ step in his artistic development and it had absolutely nothing to do with lower expenses perhaps increasing the chances of getting his work performed.