And the next day Jeffro walked into the engine house and asked the men sitting round with their heels up how much he owed them.
"For what?" says they.
"For putting down my fire," Jeffro says. "That is, for coming to put it down if I had one."
The men stared at him and burst out laughing. "Why nothing," they said. "That don't cost anything. That's free."
Jeffro just stood and looked at them. "Free?" he said. "But the big engine and the wagons and the men and the horses—does nobody pay them to come and put down fires?"
"Why, the town does," they told him. "The town pays them."
He said eagerly: "No, no—you have not understood. I pay no taxes—I do not help that way with taxes. Then I must pay instead—no?"
They could hardly make him understand. All these big things put at his service, even the town fire-bell rung, and nothing to pay for it. His experience with cities was slight, in any case. He went off, looking all dazed, and left the men shouting. It seemed such a joke to the men that it shouldn't be all free. It seemed so wonderful to Jeffro that it should.
He hadn't gone half a block from the engine-house when he turned round and went back.
"The gentlemen have not understood," he said. "I am not yet a citizen. I have apply for my first papers, but I am not yet a citizen. Whoever is not citizen must pay for this fire attention. Is it not so?"