Mary Roberts Rinehart

“ The aide laughed also. Aides always laugh when the general does. It is etiquette. When the general had stopped laughing he became very military again, and swore.
“We'll look into it, Tommy,” he said. “It's a damned shame. Somebody's going to pay for it through the nose.”
This is a little-used phrase, but the general had read it somewhere and adopted it. It means copiously.
He was not aware, naturally, that Sergeant Gray was already paying for it, copiously.
It was at that precise moment that a little car drew up outside his quarters. The general smiled and rolled himself a cigarette. ”

“ He broke off and chuckled.
“He is not at all the hiding sort.”
“Under certain circumstances, Peggy,“ observed the general, “any man will hide—and should.”
Some time later, at approximately the hour when Sergeant Gray's twenty-three and a half hours' leave was up, the little car started for the city. It contained one anxious young lady, one general who rolled constant cigarettes and chuckled, and one aide on the folding seat in the back, rather resentful because there was no adequate place for his legs.
“I'm going along, Tommy,” the general had said. ”

“ At the building on Twenty-second Street the general got out, leaving Peggy discreetly in the car. He was a large and very military figure, and he summoned the elevator man with a single commanding gesture. ”