A Point
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, says Pope, sarcastically, by all means; pray let the
young gentleman look at it. Upon which the officer took up the
manuscript, and, considering it a while, 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.