Cross-examining according to Rumpole

"Cross-examining," I explained to Edmund, "is not the art of examining crossly.  I was polite to Mr X.  I treated him like a friend.  I led him gently by the hand up the garden path and dropped him in the compost heap.  I'm sorry you missed it."

-Mortimer, John.  "Rumpole and the Boy" in A Rumpole Christmas (New York: Viking, 2009), 63