Pope was one evening at Button’s Coffee-house, where he and a set of
literati had got poring over a Latin manuscript, in which they had found
a passage that none of them could comprehend. A young officer, who heard
their conference, begged that he might be permitted to look at the
passage. “Oh,” said Pope, sarcastically, “by all means; pray let the
young gentleman look at it.” Upon which the officer took up the
manuscript, and, considering it awhile, said there only wanted a note of
interrogation to make the whole intelligible: which was really the case.
“And pray, Master,” says Pope with a sneer, “what is a _note of
interrogation_?”--“A note of interrogation,” replied the young fellow,
with a look of great contempt, “is a little _crooked thing_ that asks
questions.”