So that’s what you think of us, Boss! Too grand for us—after all we’ve done for you! The voice of her shoes, her green shoes with sky-blue linings, was filled with reproach, and her eyes popped open. She looked away, ashamed at her greed. She would have to be careful. It was all very well becoming Mrs. Phuti Radiphuti, wife of the proprietor of the Double Comfort Furniture Shop, but one should not forget where it was that one had come from; although, if one did, there were always one’s shoes to remind one.

CURIOUSLY ENOUGH, while Mma Makutsi prepared Phuti Radiphuti’s dinner that evening, happily anticipating the arrival of the new bed the following morning, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and Mma Ramotswe, comfortably seated on their verandah, were talking about her. Although their conversation did not have anything to do—directly—with the bed in question, nonetheless it did concern an intimate problem arising from Mma Makutsi’s engagement.

“Mma Makutsi spoke to me about her engagement this morning,” said Mma Ramotswe. “We were having tea…”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni smiled. They were always having tea, as far as he could work out. There was the first cup, served shortly after they arrived in the office in the morning, and then there was the ten o’clock cup, which was sometimes taken at nine thirty in the hot weather. That was followed by the tea which was brewed at eleven thirty (the mid-morning tea), and of course there was tea immediately after lunch and again at three in the afternoon. He thought it was a good thing that the red bush tea contained no caffeine, or Mma Ramotswe would surely find it difficult to get to sleep at night, with all that caffeine in her system. Yet Mma Makutsi drank ordinary tea, which had ample quantities of caffeine in it, he believed; indeed he thought that this might explain why she was sometimes so tetchy with the apprentices, especially with Charlie. Mind you, anybody might be forgiven for being irritated by Charlie, with his constant boasting and that endless silly chatter about girls; even one with no caffeine at all in his system could find himself snapping at such a young man.

“Her engagement? That is a long story.” He laughed, but stopped himself quickly. His own engagement had not been exactly brief. It had lasted for some years and had only been brought to a successful conclusion when Mma Potokwane had somehow managed to stand with Mma Ramotswe before that improvised altar on the orphan farm. He did not regret that day for one moment, and the memory of it was unquestionably a warm one; but the length of the preceding engagement perhaps precluded his passing comment on the length of time for which Mma Makutsi and Phuti Radiphuti were engaged.