Chapter 25 Summary

Pieter is relieved. Overjoyed. He pays a visit to Kappie's store, and displays a side of himself that Kappie has never seen. He asks whether they are having coffee or tea, whereas before he had always waited first to be asked; he talks to Kappie's bird and asks it to sing; and he requests that when next they get together, Kappie play music that is cheerful, like Gilbert and Sullivan.

Then he asks if Kappie might know why Herman Geyer would spit at him. Kappie tells him that the neighbors had complained of the flies and Geyer's stables, and in turn, the captain had warned Geyer to build a new stable or send the cows back to his farm. Geyer is angry with the police and his neighbors and thus Pieter, being both a neighbor and policeman, is doubly despised by Geyer.

That...