We entered the house and shortly after sat down to dinner. The party consisted of the commander-in-chief, General Bundy, and a most delightful staff of eight officers—I being the only civilian. As such I expected and half hoped that the talk would be all about the wonderful success of the first day’s push by Foch, of which I had already heard enthusiastic rumors in the town, or of great military secrets, affairs of strategy, monster guns, thousands of airplanes, and new, mysterious machines of destruction. But, to my surprise, the conversation during almost the entire dinner was of music, of its influence in raising the spirits of the soldier, in giving him the right kind of recreation and the necessary relief from the monotony of camp work or the horrors of battle. General Pershing told me that after hearing some of the crack military bands of France and England he had been so overwhelmed by the consciousness of our inferiority that he was eager to know if something could not be done to improve the general standard of our army bands, and, more particularly, whether it might not be possible at least to take out the best players from among the bands then in France and to form a headquarters band of superior excellence, led by the best bandmaster among them, and in this way form a model which the others could endeavor to copy. This suggestion seemed to me excellent, and I asked how many bandmasters there were at present in France, as I would like to examine them as to their fitness. General Pershing said, with a smile, that there were over two hundred, but this did not phase me and I agreed to examine them all, provided that proper arrangements could be made for a fitting test of their qualifications. Various plans for such an examination were discussed and General Pershing finally decided to send them all to Paris in batches of fifty every week, together with a military band which should be stationed there for the following four or five weeks, thus giving me abundant opportunity to test their efficiency in conducting as well as in harmony and orchestration. It seemed to me at the time remarkable that, in the midst of war and with all its many immediate necessities weighing upon him, General Pershing should have had the acumen to perceive the value of music in war time and to interest himself in its improvement.