Yes ... [he sighs. by now, this was a story he had told a few times to other residents, but it seemed it would never get any easier in the telling] It's difficult to say how, precisely, it began, but there was a disagreement that split the V.F.D into two sections ... quietly at first, and then quite violently, the way a tear begins in a piece of cloth. First a thread or two unravels, and then suddenly the strain is too much and the tear grows until it threatens to ruin the fabric entirely ... and you are left with two separate pieces of cloth, one which is used to beat out fires, and the other soaked in kerosene and more prepared to help begin them.