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.
On the last night in camp, at a pine table in a tiny office cut off from the lower squad room, Sergeant Gray made the above record against his own fair name, and sitting back surveyed it grimly. It was two A. M. Across from him the second mess sergeant was dealing in cans and pounds and swearing about a missing cleaver.
“Did you ever think,” reflected Sergeant Gray, leaning back in his chair and tastefully drawing a girl’s face on his left thumb-nail, “that the time would come when you’d be planning bran muffins for the Old Man’s breakfast? What’s a bran muffin, anyhow?”
“Horse feed.”
“Ever eat one?”
“No. Stop talking, won’t you?”
Sergeant Gray leaned back and stretched his long arms high above his head.
“I’ve got to talk,” he observed. “If I don’t I’ll go to sleep. Lay you two dollars to one I’m asleep before you are.”
“Go to the devil!” said the second mess sergeant peevishly.
“Never had breakfast with the Old Man, did you?” inquired Sergeant Gray, beginning on his forefinger with another girl’s face.