A humorous account of the events in a single evening at a private club hotel, where the guests must be approved, paying members to come and stay there.  The main part of the novel takes place in the dining room and the cocktail lounge.  The hotel is located on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in South Florida.  A company convention is present at the hotel, much to the dissatisfaction of the regular members.  The convention is there only because the hotel has been running in the red financiallly for years and needs to supplement its income to keep open.  The hotel has only just begun allowing company conventions to come, stay and have meetings there.  And though the conventioneers are partitioned off from the main section of the dining room and their meetings are held in a new and seperate part of the hotel, the regular members do not want them there at all.  The interplay between the members, hotel staff and the conventioneers is the center of the novel.