Every parent has heard that annoying question more than a few times.
They would often stop him and begin asking annoying questions if he looked at them the "wrong" way.
The central conceit is of an idiot putting dumb and/or annoying questions to someone with more information than him/her.
But he hadn't come to Washington to defend himself from this general's annoying questions.
Thus, one might answer an annoying question by saying "It's in the literature."
Why did he speak in riddles; ask such annoying questions?
After that, all the annoying questions that people asked me stopped.
And on the heels of the critics come the reporters, with their annoying questions: "Where were you born?"
Kling had a habit of bringing up annoying little questions that could bug a man all day long.