What is commonly known as "silent cross-examination" is generally the most effective. The jury realize the difficulties of the situation for the lawyer, and are not unlikely to sympathize with him, unless he makes bold to attack the witness, when they quickly chance their attitude. One question, and that as to the witness's means of livelihood, is often sufficient. "How do you support yourself?" "I am a lady of leisure!" replies the witness (arrayed in flamboyant colors) snappishly. "That will do, thank you," remarks the lawyer with a smile. "You may step down." The writer remembers being nicely hoisted by his own petard on a similar occasion: "What do you do for a living?" he asked. The witness, a rather deceptively arrayed woman, turned upon him with a glance of contempt: "I am a respectable married woman, with seven children," she retorted. "I do nothing for a living except cook, wash, scrub, make beds, clean windows, mend my children's clothes, mind the baby, teach the four oldest their lessons, take care of my husband, and try to get enough sleep to be up by five in the morning. I guess if some lawyers worked as hard as I do they would have sense enough not to ask impertinent questions." An amusing incident is recorded of how a feminine witness turned the laugh upon Mr. Francis L. Wellman, the noted cross-examiner. In his book he takes the opportunity to advise his lawyer readers to "avoid the mistake, so common among the inexperienced, of making much of trifling discrepancies. It has been aptly said," he continues, "that 'juries have no respect for small triumphs over a witness's self-possession or memory!' Allow the loquacious witness to talk on; he will be sure to involve himself in difficulties from which he can never extricate himself. Some witnesses prove altogether too much; encourage them and lead them by degrees into exaggerations that will conflict with the common-sense of the jury." Mr. Wellman is famous for following this precept himself and, with one eye significantly cast upon the jury, is likely to lead his witness a merry dance until the latter is finally "bogged" in a quagmire of absurdities. Not long ago, shortly after the publication of his book, the lawyer had occasion to cross-examine a modest-looking young woman as to the speed of an electric car. The witness seemed conscious that she was about to undergo a severe ordeal, and Mr. Wellman, feeling himself complete master of the situation, began in his most winsome and deprecating manner: "And how fast, Miss, would you say the car was going?" "I really could not tell exactly, Mr. Wellman." "Would you say that it was going at ten miles an hour?" "Oh, fully that!" "Twenty miles an hour?" "Yes, I should say it was going twenty miles an hour." "Will you say it was going thirty miles an hour?" inquired Wellman with a glance at the jury. "Why, yes, I will say that it was." "Will you say it was going forty?" "Yes." "Fifty?" "Yes, I will say so."