"What are you driving at, Amory?" asked the captain.
"I was wondering if I could make a word out of it, but bedea doesn't begin any word either in English or German that I know of. Try the other paper."
"F sharp, A, G, E," said Harry.
"It's the sharps and flats that bother me," said Kenneth. "Do they ever call them anything else?"
"No ... Wait a bit. The Germans call B flat B, and B natural H. I remember toiling away at a fugue on the name BACH years ago. I say, give me a minute. I've got a notion."
He sat down at the table, took out pencil and began to write the names of the notes on the lines and spaces, beginning with A on the second leger line below the stave. Having written H on the third line, instead of writing A on the second space he wrote I, and on the third space J. Then he paused, looking reflectively at the notes originally written. Except in the case of B flat, all the accidentals were sharps.
"We'll try this," he said.
On the third space he wrote C sharp, and called it K, and so proceeding, completed the alphabet by writing two notes, the second sharpened, on each line and space. Z fell on the third space above the stave.
"Now try again," he said to Kenneth.
Kenneth took up von Schwank's paper, and read off the names of the notes in this new notation. The first four letters were Sage.