Explore "The Soldier's Song" by Alan Monaghan on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The richness of the scene was overpowering: candlelight and the rustle of taffeta and the thump of dancing feet and the swish of dresses whirling past. The air was heavy with the smell of perfume and cologne and hummed with polite conversation. It was making him dizzy.
‘I suppose it hasn't occurred to your brother,' Billy was saying, ‘that you are striking a blow for the workers simply by being here. ' He paused to gesture as expansively as he could with a champagne flute in one hand and an overflowing plate in the other. ‘I mean, every morsel of food you eat comes directly from the coffers of old man D'Arcy. And since he's usually as tight as the proverbial duck's arse, the fact that our cups overfloweth at his expense makes it all the more tasty, if you ask me.'