"warm and thick and poisoned with human breath"

"In the trees of the Old Steyne the fairy lights were switched on; it was too early, their pale colours didn't show in the last of the day.  The long tunnel under the parade was the noisiest, lowest, cheapest section of Brighton's amusements: children rushed past them in paper sailor caps marking 'I'm No Angel'; a ghost train rattled by carrying courting couples into a squealing and shrieking darkness.  All the way along the landward side of the tunnel were the amusements; on the other little shops: Magpie Ices, Photoweigh, Shellfish, Rock.  The shelves rose to the celling; little doors let you into the obscurity behind, and on the sea side there were no doors at all, no windows, nothing but shelf after shelf from the pebbles to the roof, a breakwater of Brighton rock facing the sea.  The lights were always on in the tunnel; the air was warm and thick and poisoned with human breath."

-- Graham Greene, Brighton Rock