[Illustration] TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS’ LEAVE MARY ROBERTS RINEHART [Illustration: IN THE ELEVATOR SHE SAID OUT OF A CLEAR SKY: “YOU’LL HAVE TO TAKE THAT RAINCOAT OFF, OF COURSE.”] TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS’ LEAVE BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART AUTHOR OF “K,” “BAB,” “THE AMAZING INTERLUDE,” ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY MAY WILSON PRESTON [Illustration] NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY _Copyright, 1918, By George H. Doran Company_ _Copyright, 1918, By The Curtis Publishing Company_ _Printed in the United States of America_ ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE ELEVATOR SHE SAID OUT OF A CLEAR SKY: “YOU’LL HAVE TO TAKE THAT RAINCOAT OFF, OF COURSE” _Frontispiece_ PAGE “IF A MAN FROM THE HEADQUARTERS TROOP OVERSTAYS HIS LEAVE WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM, UNCLE JIMMY?” 48 TWENTY-THREE AND A HALF HOURS’ LEAVE I The Headquarters Troop were preparing to leave camp and move towards the East, where at an Atlantic port they would take ship and the third step toward saving democracy. Now the Headquarters Troop are a cavalry organisation, their particular function being, so far as the lay mind can grasp it, to form a circle round the general and keep shells from falling on him. Not that this close affiliation gives them any right to friendly relations with that aloof and powerful personage. “It just gives him a few more to yell at that can’t yell back,” grumbled the stable sergeant. He had been made stable sergeant because he had been a motorcycle racer. By the same process of careful selection the chief mechanic had once kept a livery stable. The barracks hummed day and night. By day boxes were packed, containing the military equipment of horses and men in wartime. By night tired noncoms pored over pay rolls and lists, and wrote, between naps on the table, such thrilling literature as this: “Sergeant Gray: fr. D. to Awol. 10 A. M., 6–1–’18. “Sergeant Gray: fr. Awol. to arrest, pp. 2. Memo. Hdq. Camp 6–1–’18 to 6–2–’18.” Which means, interpreted, that Sergeant Gray was absent without leave from duty at ten A. M. on the first of June, 1918, and that on his return he was placed under arrest, said arrest lasting from the first to the second of June.