g more cheerful," resumed Dr. Dubbe; and seating
himself at the piano he played the Schubert C minor impromptu. "On the
second page," he said, "where the key becomes A flat major, occurs a
harmony which looks and sounds like a foreign chord. Treated
harmonically it is a second dominant formation, and should read C flat,
D natural, A flat, diminished seventh of the key of the dominant.
Schubert does not, however, use it harmonically, otherwise the B natural
would read C flat. These notes are enharmonic because, though different,
they sound the same."

"How clear!" exclaimed Miss Gay Votte.

"But Schubert, instead of progressing harmonically, goes directly back
into the tonic of A flat major."

"How careless of him!" said Mrs. Givu A. Payne.

"Schubert uses it in its natural position. If the enharmonic C flat were
used the chord would then be in its third inversion. Each diminished
seventh harmony may resolve in sixteen different ways."

"Mercy!" murmured Mrs. Fuller-Prunes. "How much there is to know."

Dr. Dubbe passed his hand across his brow as if wearied. "I shall never
cease to regret," he said, "that Schubert did not write C flat. It would
have been so much clearer."

After the lecture Miss Ellenborough gave us another surprise--doughnuts
made in the shape of flats. Dr. Dubbe ate five, saying that D flat major
was his favorite key.

I rode down in the elevator with him and he repeated his remark that
Schubert had unnecessarily bemuddled the chord.

"I am sure you made it very plain," I said. "We all understand it now."

"Do you, indeed?" he replied. "That's more than I do."

Of course he was jesting. He understands everything.

IV.

Dr. Dubbe was in his element yesterday. The trinity of B's--Bach,
Beethoven, and Brahms--or, as Dr. Dubbe put it, the "trinity of
logicians," was much to his taste: a truly Gothic program.

"But what a contrast is the second half," said Dr. Dubbe. "In the first
we have the Kings of absolute music. In his youth Beethoven strayed from
the path (for even he must sow his musical wild oats), but in his
maturer years he produced no music that was not absolute. But in the
second half we have Berlioz and program music."

"I thought program music was music suitable for programs," said Mrs.
Givu A. Payne.

"Berlioz," continued Dr. Dubbe, "instituted the 'musical reform' in
Germany--the new German school of Liszt and Wagner. Berlioz's music is
all on the surface, while Brahms