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government clerk by quoting a non-existent regulation; she had pretended to be somebody she was not when looking into a family dispute for a former minister; the list was really quite long when one came to think of it. In every case, she had done this in her attempts to help somebody who needed help, and it was also true that they were not large lies, but they were lies nonetheless, and so she wondered whether Mma Ramotswe was entirely consistent on this point. She would have to ask her about it, but for the moment it was perhaps better to move on to another topic. So she looked up from her plate and asked Phuti Radiphuti what had happened at the furniture store that day.
    He was pleased to leave the philosophical complexities of blackmail, and launched with alacrity into an account of a difficulty they had encountered with the delivery of a table that had only three legs. The factory was adamant that it had left their premises with four, but his warehouse man was equally firm in his view that it had only three on arrival.
    â€œPerhaps that is another one for Mma Ramotswe,” said Mma Makutsi. “She is very good at finding out things like that.”
    Phuti smiled at the suggestion. “There are bigger things for Mma Ramotswe to do,” he said. “She has big crimes to solve.”
    Mma Makutsi had heard of this popular misconception. It flattered her to think that the reputation of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency had been so inflated, but she could not allow Phuti, her own fiancé, to remain in ignorance about what they actually did.
    â€œNo,” she said. “Mma Ramotswe does not solve crimes. She deals with very small things.” To portray the smallness, Mma Makutsi put a thumb and forefinger within a whisker of one another. “But,” she went on, “these small things are important for people. Mma Ramotswe has often told me that our lives are made up of small things. And I think she is right.”
    Phuti thought she was right too. He was slightly disappointed to be disabused of the notion that the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency dealt with major crimes. It had been pleasing enough for him to have a fiancée at all, let alone a fiancée who pursued so glamorous a profession, and he had boasted to friends that he was engaged to a well-known detective. And of course that was strictly speaking true—Mma Makutsi was indeed a detective, and it did not matter too much that she concerned herself with mundane matters. In fact, this was probably all for the good. The other sort of detective might be exposed to danger, and that was not what he had in mind for his wife-to-be. There was little danger in the furniture business, and there would always be a place for her there should she decide to abandon detection. He wondered whether he should mention this to her, but decided against it. He did not want her to think that marriage to him would involve her submitting to his plans; he had heard that women were reluctant to accept that sort of thing these days—and a good thing too, he thought. For far too long men had assumed that women would do their bidding, and if women were now questioning that, then he was quite happy to agree with them. Not that he was sympathetic to those people who called themselves feminists: he had heard one of those ladies on the radio and had been shocked by her aggressiveness towards the man who was interviewing her. This woman had more or less accused the reporter of arrogance when he had questioned her statement that men had, in general, fewer abilities than women. She had said that his time was “over” and that men like him would be swept aside by feminism. But if men were to be swept aside, wondered Phuti Radiphuti, then where would men be put? Would there be special homes for them, where they could be given small tasks to perform while women got on with the important business of running things? Would men be allowed out of these