Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith

very comfortable. It gives me a sore back at the end of the day, I'm afraid. It is not the same shape as I am, you see.”
    Phuti frowned. “You are a very nice shape, Grace. I have always said that. It is the chair that is wrong.”
    The compliment was appreciated, and she smiled at her fiancé. “Thank you, Phuti. Yes, the chair is very old. It has been there since the very beginning, when we had that old office over near Kgale Hill.”
    “Then I must give you a new one,” said Phuti firmly. “I will bring one round to the office tomorrow. We have a whole new section for office furniture in the shop, and there are many fine-looking chairs. I will bring you a good one.”
    She thanked him, but then thought: What about Mma Ramotswe? What would she feel if she saw her assistant getting a new chair while she was stuck with her old one? She could always raise this issue with Phuti Radiphuti, but if she did so he might feel that she was being greedy: one did not accept a present with one hand and at the same time hold out the other on behalf of somebody else.
Thank you, Rra, for the nice chair you have given me, and now how about one for my friend, Mma Ramotswe?
That would not do.
    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 eachmouth, 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