JIM LEHRER:
[It is the last ten minutes on a slow news night and he speaks in the same steady voice he would use if he were announcing that Hillary was divorcing Bill, that President Bush had resigned or that the Russians had decided to dump capitalism and go back to communism.]

There has been a good deal of comment in recent weeks about Oriental rugs and, specifically, about how these rugs are sold. In New York and other cities, evidently, rugs are offered on weekends at what are advertised as auctions. We have assembled two commentators on this topic, to air the pros and cons of these sales, whether they are auctions or not and, if, as it may turn out, there is room for improvement in the marketing of what covers the floors in our homes and in many cases our offices.

[We see a flicker of a smile on Jim Lehrer's face as he continues.]

First, tonight, is Omar K. Ruggoffascam, a dealer who lives in the Inwood section of Manhattan. He holds auctions, usually on Sunday, at motels in suburban areas, including, we are told, motels on Long Island, in Poughkeepsie and Troy, New York. Mr. Ruggoffascam is Syrian by birth and comes to us as a representative of the Association of Syrian-Born Rug Dealers of America, with offices in Los Angeles, Houston and Hempstead, Long Island.

And we have [Double flicker of a smile] Miss Faith Justborn, who lives in Rockwell, New Jersey, where she devotes most of her time to charitable organizations, including feeding hospital patients too ill to feed themselves, due to injuries incurred in automobile accidents.

Miss Justborn, we are told, often works twelve to fourteen hours a day at her tasks, and she receives no salary of any kind for these services. She pays for her own lunch and dinner at the hospitals she serves. She has been selflessly doing this charitable work since before the First World War.

A year ago, after reading an ad for an auction of rugs at a motel in Carle Place, Long Island, Miss Justborn traveled by bus to the motel, a trip of some six hours. She blamelessly purchased a rug at the auction for a sum of thirty-seven thousand dollars, which she says—and we have no cause to doubt her—was her entire life savings.

She now reports that in less than a week the rug disintegrated and was reduced to a useless rag, unfit even for donation to a charitable organization, from which, in any case, she would not attempt to receive a receipt for tax-deduction purposes.

So, okay, Mr. O. K. Ruggoffascam, let's start with you, okay? How about it? People are saying operations like yours are dishonest or worse. Is there any cause for alarm in the public's mind? Should they attend an auction of yours and buy a rug? [Triple-ripple of a smile.]

O.K. RUGGOFFASCAM:
Okay, yes, yes, of course, okay? Our prices are the lowest and we sell nothing but the highest quality, okay?

JIM LEHRER: Miss Justborn? Do you agree?

MISS JUSTBORN: No.

JIM LEHRER: I'd love to go on with this, but we are out of time. Faith, O.K., thank you.

[Is that a twinkle in his eye? Oh, no, it wasn't a smirk was it? Yes it was. It was a smirk! He has that "I made-ja-look-I-made-ja-look" look I remember from childhood. Then comes the realization—this is a game we have been playing: "How to Fill the Last Ten Minutes of an Hour Without Saying Anything," and I have been a party to it—the all-important viewer, without whom there can be no Newshour, no game, no, no, no!]