_Interior of a dreary room in the War Office. A tired-looking young officer, in mufti, sits at a table with great piles of papers, each bundle tied with red tape and ticketed with labels of different colours, on one side of it ready to his hand. Another pile of papers, which he has already dealt with, is on the other side of the table. He is an official and has many letters, the first two being D. A. after his name. The gas has just been lighted. A clerk brings in another fat bundle of papers._ _The Officer (patting the smaller pile on the table)._ These can go on, Smithers. That question of sardine-openers must go back to the commissariat, and the General commanding the Central District must be authorised to deal on his own responsibility with the matter of the fierce bull in the field where the recruits bathe. What have you got there? _The Clerk._ It is the correspondence, sir, relative to that false tooth requisitioned for by the officer commanding the Rutlandshire Regiment for the first cornet of the band. The Medical Department sent it back to us this morning, and there is another letter in from the Colonel, protesting against his regiment being forced to go route marching to an imperfect musical accompaniment. _The Officer (groaning)._ I thought we had got rid of that matter at last by sending it to the doctors. _The Clerk._ No, sir. The Surgeon-General has decided that "one tooth, false, with gold attachment," cannot be considered a medical comfort. _The Officer (taking a précis from the top of the papers)._ I suppose we must go into the matter again. It began with the letter from the Colonel to the General? _The Clerk._ Yes, sir, here it is. The O. C. the Rutland Regiment has the honour to report that the first cornet player in the band has lost a tooth, and as the band has become inefficient in the playing of marching music in consequence, he requests that a false tooth may be supplied at Government expense. _The Officer._ And the General, of course, replied in the usual formula that he had no fund available for such purpose. _The Clerk._ Yes, sir; but suggested that the regimental band fund might be drawn on. _The Officer._ Where is the Colonel's letter in reply. (It is handed to him.) Ah, yes. Band fund is established, he writes, for purchase of musical instruments and music, and not for repair of incomplete bandsmen, and refuses to authorise expense, except under order from the Commander-in-Chief. _The Clerk._ The General sends this on to us with a remark as to the Colonel's temper. _The Officer._ And we pass it to the Quarter-Master-General's people, suggesting that under certain circumstances a false tooth might be considered a "necessary," and a free issue made.