Later there were Ken, Carey, Peter, John Foyster, myself and goodness knows who else playing poker on the floor. Quite suddenly the room began to fill with people which meant that the films must have finished. Several new people were dealt into the game but many more congregated about the room and insisted an getting to the refrigerator where the booze was by standing right in the middle of our floor level card table. We dedicated card players were not amused but not distracted too much from our game either. The party was only just beginning to find its voice when there was a knock at the door. Unusual since the door was already open. It was the under- assistant-nightmanager and he wanted us to keep quiet, though if he'd taken a good look at the number of people packed into the room he would have known it was impossible. All the same people went quiet for a while but gradually became noisieragain. Even more people were somehow fitting themselves in and by the time the under assistant knocked again the party was a mad house and he had to shout to make himself heard. At first I think he thought he was going to older us to stop the party, but thirty or forty sets of glaring fannish eyes must have unnerved him so instead he said that we tidally shouldn't have been making so much noise, that he didn't want to stop us enjoying ourselves so he'd open up one of the small function rooms and we could party on there. We were collectively grateful, but probably not as much as he was when we went quietly. Valma had gone downstairs to pick up something she'd left there and so I went down to tell her of the change of venue. The convention room was a mess, bheer cans everywhere (which was a no-no since the hotel, so we had learned, was dry and didn't appreciate such things). Paul Stevens and Valma and a few others were madly trying to make the place look more respectable before some hotel staff member happened across the scene of the crime, and we didn't get the clean up finished a moment too soon, the last piece of incriminating evidence was disposed of just before the under- assistant made an appearance. Later, back up at the relocated party things were going well. Fans were sprawled all over the place, the piano in the corner was being put to good use and the poker game had installed itself into a little side room where, a year and a half earlier, the trufans of Melbourne had played poker for two days with fanzines as stakes I was dealt back into the game but it was no longer the harmless little game I'd left, directly across the table sat Pedr Gurteen who was good, not that luck had much to do with it, he was efficient. There was a cold fire in his eyes as he played and it only took on that characteristic twinkle of amusement as he raked in the pot, which was not quite every hand, I had thought that John Foyster was good, he plays like a mathematician who has studied the odds, but with Pedr playing he was reduced to the same level as the rest of us, bumbling idiocy. "How did you learn to play so well?" some poor fool asked. "I learned in the Marines, humans," he replied as he pulled in yet another handful of money. Pedr often refers to people as "humans" and the way he says it makes you glad that he bothers to speak to you at all. And when he said "Marines" we knew he didn't mean the US marines and there's only one group worse than them and that's the Royal Marines. After that it was a wonder that we didn't simply hand over our money and go home. Soon, though, it was about two and Valma and I reminded each other that we'd have to go home soon. A while later we reminded each other again and I said we'd go as soon as I lost all the money I had on the table, which surely wouldn't last more than another three hands the way things were going. My estimate was about right and, as with the night before, we stole out through the darkened lobby, searched out a taxi and went home. The last event of the convention was to be a Great Wall of China at one of the local chinese restaurants, but before that the convention had to be officially closed and after it there was to be a party hosted by Lee Harding and Irene Pagram. Valma and I were in two minds about going to either the Great Wall or the party, with less than twenty-four hours before we were to leave there still seemed to be an unlimited number 5