As I sat there, the memory of the hollow-cheeked Bandmaster Tyler who had stood next to me at the Fourth of July parade in Paris suddenly came back. I thought to myself that here I was, the only civilian at the table, and that therefore I might say anything I pleased without being put up against a wall at sunrise and shot, for at the worst they could only consider me as very ignorant of army customs. Therefore I watched for my opportunity and suddenly plunged in and spoke of my conversation with Bandmaster Tyler while we were waiting for our marines to march down the Champs-Élysées. I said that in my humble opinion it was a great mistake to use musicians as stretcher-bearers in battle, not that their lives as soldiers were any more valuable than those of any others in the army, but that a stretcher-bearer could be trained in a very short time while it took many months to train a bandsman; that the Canadian regiments had followed the same custom during the first months of the war, but the results had been so dire in destroying the bands and their usefulness, that the soldiers themselves had implored their commanding officers not to let their bandsmen be sacrificed in this way, as there was nothing so terrible as coming back after battle to a silent and therefore desolate camp. After I had finished my rather impassioned peroration, General Bundy and others heartily agreed with me, but General Pershing said nothing at all, and I felt that I had perhaps talked too much and _mal à propos_. But the following morning, as I was seated with Colonel Collins at general headquarters arranging the details of my examinations, he smilingly handed me an order from the commander-in-chief which had just arrived and which was to be sent to the division commanders, to the effect that “from now on bandsmen are not to be used any longer as stretcher-bearers except in cases of extreme military urgency.” One of General Pershing’s remarks during the dinner is so characteristic that I repeat it here. He said: “When peace is declared and our bands march up Fifth Avenue I should like them to play so well that it will be another proof of the advantage of military training.” Subsequent developments and meetings with this interesting man further deepened the impression which he made upon me.