She did not look in the window but went straight inside, where one or two other customers were examining a selection of lace bonnets of the sort that people liked to put on babies’ heads. Some of these were attractive enough, in Mma Ramotswe’s view, but others were unduly fussy and only succeeded in making the baby look absurd.

The woman who owned the shop was busy with the bonnets, but smiled in Mma Ramotswe’s direction and gave her a look that seemed to say, These people are being very slow to make up their minds, but I shall be with you before long. It was quite a lengthy message for a single look to convey, but it did so clearly enough.

You could not buy a boy baby a bonnet like that, thought Mma Ramotswe. A cap, perhaps – one of those woollen caps that could be pulled down over the baby’s ears in cold weather. That would be a good present, though inappropriate in this heat. So one might get the baby one of the stuffed toys that were arranged along a section of shelving towards the back of the store. There was every imaginable creature: lions, chickens, even a stuffed anteater. She moved towards the shelf and reached for a lion. It was rather large for a stuffed toy – almost the size of a real lion cub – and it occurred to Mma Ramotswe that a baby might get something of a fright if given such an object.

She replaced the lion and picked up in its stead a long green crocodile, complete with teeth represented by short tabs of white felt. What would a baby make of a crocodile? And was it a good idea to give a baby such a creature to love when real crocodiles were so completely unlovable? Should you not tell very small children to keep well away from crocodiles, rather than give them the message that crocodiles were suitable companions in the nursery?