ELAINE: Here are the place-cards, mother, and the diagram. Shall I put them around?

MRS. PRINGLE: Yes, dear. Elaine, I'm going up to look after your father. He's so helpless about his ties. Remove one plate, Dunham.

DUNHAM: Remove one plate, madam? Oh! Madam! It is a certainty! You wouldn't sit down with thirteen.

MRS. PRINGLE: Thirteen! Why, you're right--thirteen! We can never sit down with thirteen. That's all due to Mr. Harper's negligence. Sick friend, nothing! He's just one of those careless men who never answer their invitations in time. His flowers, indeed, to make me forgive him -- now look at the trouble he's put me to -- thirteen! I wonder whom I could get to come in the last minute. Quick -- Elaine -- help me think. (She rushes to the telephone and looks madly through