Read To the Land of Long Lost Friends: No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (20) for Free Online

think.”
    She looked pointedly at Mma Makutsi, who knew what the look meant. Yet it took a few moments before Mma Makutsi said, “Yes, congratulations, Charlie. This is a very good bit of news—just as Mma Ramotswe has said.”
    “Thank you,” said Charlie, beaming with pleasure.
    “When will you get married?” asked Mma Ramotswe.
    Charlie’s face fell. “Not very soon. I’d like to get married tomorrow, if I could. But Queenie-Queenie’s uncle…”
    Mma Ramotswe gave an involuntary groan. Uncles. This was the bride-price negotiations, often carried out by an uncle or other relative. Queenie-Queenie came from a well-off family—Mma Ramotswe had already heard about her father’s fleet of trucks—and that meant Charlie would be expected to come up with a considerable sum for the bogadi, the bridal payment. Sometimes, in modern circles, that was unnecessary, but when it was necessary, then, as Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni sometimes said of a crucial engine part, it was three hundred per cent necessary.
    Mma Ramotswe would have been tactful in what was said next; not so, Mma Makutsi. “You’ve got no money, then. They’ll have worked that out, you know. People like that uncle of hers—whoever he is—he won’t be stupid, you know, unlike some men.”
    Charlie looked miserable. “I’ve been saving. I’ve been trying. But you know how hard it is. I have to give money to my own uncle, because I am staying in his house, and there are many children…”
    Mma Ramotswe felt a pang of sympathy for the young man. She knew how hard it was for him: sharing a room in that shack in Old Naledi, struggling to get by, counting every pula, walking long distances in the heat in order to save the minibus fare—all the humiliations of penury. “Have you managed to save anything?” she asked.
    He looked up. “I have been saving, yes. I have, Mma.”
    “How much?” asked Mma Makutsi. “How much have you got, Charlie?”
    “I have got almost six hundred pula, Mma.”
    Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi exchanged glances. That would get him nowhere. Queenie-Queenie’s uncles would be expecting a substantial amount, reckoned in head of cattle. One head of cattle cost over five thousand pula. They would be thinking of ten to twelve cattle, at the least.
    Mma Makutsi brought the discussion to a close. “I’m very sorry, Charlie, but it sounds as if your engagement is very unofficial. Maybe you should wait.”
    Charlie put down his mug. “Wait, Mma? You’re telling me to wait? So that I’m an old man by the time I get married? Fifty, maybe?”
    Mma Makutsi shook her head. “Fifty is not old, Charlie.”
    Charlie slipped off the filing cabinet and onto his feet. “Fifty is finished, Mma. Even when you’re forty, you’re finished.” He paused, and looked apologetically at Mma Ramotswe. “Except you, Mma Ramotswe. I didn’t mean you, Mma. You’re not finished.”
    “That’s good of you to say that, Charlie,” said Mma Ramotswe. “It is a great relief to hear that.”
    The comment reminded Mma Makutsi of something. “You know, there was a man in Bobonong once. He was quite an old man—not too old, but quite old. One day he said to his daughter, ‘I am finished now,’ and then he lay down on his bed and became late. He had not been ill or anything—he just decided that he was finished, and that was that.”
    Mma Ramotswe and Charlie listened to this in silence. Then Mma Ramotswe said, “One should always be careful about what one says. I think that is very well known.”

CHAPTER THREE

MOST MEN ARE UP TO SOMETHING
    “M Y HUSBAND,” Mma Ramotswe sometimes remarked, “is very good at getting the children up and sending them off to school. Many men are not so good at that, but he is.”
    She was the least boastful of women, but she felt it important to proclaim the merits of Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, a man of great modesty who would never draw attention to any of his domestic achievements. She was proud of his helpfulness