Sergeant major really in favour of cough sweet gets mint (5,7)
I believe the answer is:
small fortune
'sergeant major really in favour' is the definition.
I can't tell whether this defines the answer.
'cough sweet gets mint' is the wordplay.
'cough sweet' becomes 'small' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'gets' says to put letters next to each other.
'mint' becomes 'fortune' (I've seen this in another clue).
'small'+'fortune'='SMALL FORTUNE'
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for small fortune that I've seen before include "Large sum of money" , "But it's a large amount of money!" , "Lots of money" , "lot of money" .)