The Constable's Move: Captains All, Book 4.

W.W. Jacobs, master of the macabre and the mordantly funny, turns his eye to the small irritations of English suburbia in this gleeful tale of neighborly warfare. When Constable Evans and his family move in next door to Mr. Bob Grummit, the latter finds his comfortable existence suddenly unbearable. It's not that Evans does anything wrong exactly, it's simply that he exists: a uniformed authority figure who can keep stray items 'that shouldn't be discarded,' who commands a different kind of respect from the street. Grummit's irritation curdles into obsession, and he hatches increasingly elaborate schemes to humble the constable, only to watch each attempt collapse into glorious humiliation. The coup de grace arrives when Grummit discovers Evans has been promoted to sergeant, the promotion itself built on a ridiculous act of fabricated heroism. The irony is exquisite: Grummit has been defeated by a man he never actually managed to defeat. Jacobs peoples this slight tale with perfect comic precision, capturing the absurd importance we attach to petty grievances and the breathtaking self-sabotage of wounded pride.