Note 1: — Chapter X

On most occasions, however, Boswell's mind was sufficiently fertile, and it enabled him to say some very odd things; his ingenuity was exercised in asking Johnson the most absurd questions, and he did this very often in the hope of some good retort. 'If, Sir,' he once demanded irrelevantly, 'you were shut up in a castle and a new-born child with you, what would you do?' Johnson is said to have related that one question was, 'Pray, Sir, can you tell why an apple is round and a pear pointed?'1 On one occasion Boswell, apparently without reference to anything which had previously been said, asked 'if he had ever been accustomed to wear a night-cap.' And such questions were apt to produce an amusing discussion.