While Mma Makutsi wrestled with this question of etiquette, Phuti Radiphuti was clearly warming to the subject of chairs. It was always like that when he talked about furniture, she thought—his eyes lit up. And he did enjoy talking about furniture, in the same way as so many men talked about football. That was a good thing: if one had to choose between marrying a man who talked about furniture and one who talked about football, then there was no doubt in Mma Makutsi's mind as to which she preferred. There was so little one could say about football without repeating oneself, whereas there were a lot of things to be said about furniture, or at least some things.

“What colour?” asked Phuti. “What colour would you like your chair to be?”

Mma Makutsi was surprised by the question. She had always assumed that office chairs were black, or possibly sometimes grey: her chair at the office was somewhere in between these two colours—it was difficult to tell now, with all the use it had seen.

“Do you have green?” she asked. “I have always wanted a green chair.”

“There is certainly green,” said Phuti. “There is a very good chair that comes in green.”

It was now time for second helpings of pineapple and custard. Then, with the dessert cleared away and the tea cups set out at the ready, Mma Makutsi put on the kettle while Phuti sat back in his chair with the air of a man replete.

“And something else happened at the shop today,” he announced. “Something else that I think you will be interested to hear about.”

Mma Makutsi reached for the tea caddy, an ancient round tin on which the word Mafeking had been printed underneath a picture of a street and a line of parked cars. “You have had a busy day,” she said.

“Yes,” said Phuti. “And this other thing that happened has something to do with our being busy. We have taken on a new person.”

Mma Makutsi ladled tea into the teapot. One spoon for each mouth, she muttered, and one for the pot. “So what will he do, this new person?” she asked.

“She,” corrected Phuti. “She will be assistant manager in charge of beds. We have decided to start selling beds again, and we need somebody who can sell beds. It has to be the right sort of person.”

“And what sort of person is that?” asked Mma Makutsi.

Phuti appeared to be momentarily embarrassed. “A glamorous person,” he said, smiling apologetically. “Everybody in the furniture business says the same thing: if you want to sell expensive beds, get a very beautiful lady to do it for you.”

Mma Makutsi laughed. “That is why advertisements for cars always have a picture of a beautiful girl,” she said. “It is so easy to see what they are trying to do.”

“I think you are right,” said Phuti. “So we advertised a sales post and we had thirty people applying for it, Mma. Thirty. There must be many people who would like to sell beds.”