Mma Ramotswe laughed. “Most people would agree with you,” she said. “There are some wild animals that I would prefer not to come across.”

“Lions,” said Mr Polopetsi. “I don’t like to think that there are things which would like to have me for breakfast.” He shuddered. “Lions. Of course, they would probably go for you first, Mma Ramotswe, rather than me.” He made the remark without thinking, almost as a joke, and then he realised that it was not in very good taste. He glanced quickly at Mma Ramotswe, wondering whether she had missed what he had said. She had not.

“Oh?” she said. “And why would a lion prefer to eat me rather than you, Rra? Why would that be?”

Mr Polopetsi looked up at the sky. “I’m sure that I’m wrong,” he said. “I thought that they might eat you first because …” He was about to say that it was because he would be able to run faster than Mma Ramotswe, but he realised that the reason that he would be able to run faster was because she was too large to run fast, and that she would think that he was commenting on her size, which was the real reason for his original remark. Of course any lion would prefer Mma Ramotswe, in the same way as any customer in a butcher’s shop would prefer a tasty rump steak to a scrap of lean meat. But he could not say that either, and so he was silent.

“Because I’m traditionally built?” prompted Mma Ramotswe.

Mr Polopetsi raised his hands in a defensive gesture. “I did not say that, Mma,” he protested. “I did not.”

Mma Ramotswe smiled at him reassuringly. “I know you didn’t, Rra,” she said. “Don’t worry. I don’t mind. I’ve been thinking, you know, and I’ve decided that I might go on a diet.”

They had now arrived at the Mokolodi gate, where stone-built rondavels guarded the entrance to the camp. This gave Mr Polopetsi the respite he needed: there need be no further talk of lions or diets now that they had people to talk to. But he would not put to the back of his mind the extraordinary news which Mma Ramotswe had so casually imparted to him and which he would breathlessly pass on to Mma Makutsi the moment he saw her. It was news of the very greatest import: if Mma Ramotswe, stern and articulate defender of the rights of the fuller-figured as she was, could contemplate going on a diet, then what would happen to the ranks of the traditionally built? They would be thinned, he decided.