“Dented cans, rusted pans, jingle as they fall. We’re a great dump-picking crew, two-hundred million in all.”

I pricked up my ears and listened to this queer ditty sung in bass to the tune of Jingle Bells. From my awkward position I could not see the owner of the voice. I had just tumbled headlong down a jagged precipice of rubbish on the city dump while emptying my last tub of cans. Finally I managed to get my brown sweater-coat brushed off and the dust out of my eyes. Then the second stanza followed:

“Rubbish black, ashes gray, paper, rags, a trunk Sure I’m searchin‘ for a jewel, but all I find is junk.”

This time I spied the owner of the deep bass voice. I yoo-hooed to him but he kept poking around “searchin‘ for a jewel,” as his song expressed it.

When I was a few yards away from him I stepped on a light bulb that popped under my feet. This made the hunched-over dump picker lift his broad face and I got my first peek at what was under his mouse-colored hat.

“Dump-picking?” I asked, with a little twinge of sarcasm to my voice.

“Dump–picking, of course!” he snorted, while his broad nose sniffed away my disdain, and his tar-black mustache twitched with a touch of rage. “I’m a member of the biggest union in the world, the dump-pickers union,” he continued.

“Balderdash!” I snorted, snapping my teeth down hard.

“Don‘t believe it, hey?” he grunted, while digging about the ruins of waste some more.

His hunched back reminded me of the Hunch Back of Notre Dame. Although his features, I had to admit, weren‘t as repulsive.

Suddenly Mr. Dump-picker stood erect, his six foot figure silhouetted against the haze of the smoldering ruins. “My name’s Jim Krone,” he announced, and held out a smudgy hand.

I took it hesitantly, shook it feebly and told him, “And my name is Ben Told. Glad to know you.” “Ben Told,” he muttered. “Ben Told? That‘s just the right name, just wait and you’ll see what I mean.”

I was dumbfounded. This shoddy looking character was proving to be more intelligent than I gave him credit for.

“Now that we‘re introduced we can talk straight from the shoulder,” he said. “You don’t believe there’s such a thing as a dump-pickers’ union?” he repeated.

“No. Heard of a Bum‘s Union, but not a Dump-pickers union.”

“Do you ever go to public theaters?” he shot out, his black eyes boring through me.

I had to admit I had, just a little.

“Well, you‘ve Ben Told,” he started to pun. “You‘ve Ben Told they’re a good place to go. But I’m here to tell you they’re just the same as dump-picking.”

“I don’t follow you,” I said.

“Well, you’ve Ben Told that there are some pictures in public theaters that you should see?”

“Yes.”

‘“Well sir,” he said, “you‘ve got a wife and a little son. Would you put about ninety percent poison in their food and tell them to eat the stuff?”

“No, but who told you I was married?”

“Conclusions,” he barked. “Your band ring on your finger is quite new. Your billfold half tucked in your pocket shows a picture of a small lad about two years old.”

I tucked my pocket book in place. “Right,” I had to agree, admiring his Sherlock Holmes methods of deduction.

He continued, “Would you teach that little son of yours when he grows a wee bit more:

How to easily open a safe by ‘feel’ of dial;

How to enter a store by forcing the lock with a crowbar or screw driver;

How to cut burglar alarm wires in advance during the day in preparation for robbery;

How to take doors off hinges to force the way into apartments with the idea of stealing;

How to act and what to do while robbing with a gun;

How to jimmy a door or window for entering to rob;

How to force the door of an auto with a piece of pipe or steel rod;

How to use pistols, shotguns, blackjacks, brass knuckles, bombs;

How to gamble and cheat fast with drunken persons;

How to pick pockets of people in large crowds;

How to steal, maim, murder . . . .”

“No, no, no!” I shouted with upraised hands in disgust at the awful picture he presented.

“Well, that‘s what the average movie teaches you,” he rejoined, then went back to his dump-picking.

“Yes sir, going to a theater is just like dump-picking,” he emphasized, and sang again:

“Rubbish black, ashes gray, paper, rags, a trunk.

Sure, I’m searchin‘ for a jewel, but all I find is junk.”

With a sudden about-face he once more looked at me and asked, “Are you a Christian?”

“Yes.”

He pushed his mouse-colored hat towards the back of his blunt head. “Then you‘ll understand what I’m aiming at.”

I listened.

“People who go dump–picking in the movies—who try to find a jewel in the junk-pile of lust and crime are in the words of Scriptures, ‘Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful; who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them’” (Romans 1:29–32).

I was shocked. An educated dump-picker, and a Christian too, I reflected as I looked at the sun passing through a dusty-rose cloud, and listened to the ‘o-kalee’ of a red-winged black bird in the swamp a few rods away.

My friend Jim Krone kept picking away, still searchin‘ for that jewel. When he unkinked his long frame he studied my face for a full minute.

“You‘re intelligent,” he remarked.

“I pretend to be,” I evaded.

“Listen,” he prodded. “Can a man take fire in his bosom and his clothes not be burned?” (Prov. 6:27) “No,” I had to admit.

“I’m here to tell you,” he continued, and the black of his eyes seemed to scintillate with anger, “that the movie-goer does take fire into his bosom. Nobody is safe running with a group of gangsters, hearing their lewd talk, listening to their mockery of the Bible. And who dare say that only a few pictures show crime or make it appear attractive and easy? Remember that Dr. Edgar Dale studied carefully one-thousand–five-hundred films, and then took at random one-hundred–fifteen average pictures and analyzed their contents. What did he find? In these one-hundred-fifteen average pictures there were four-hundred-six crimes actually committed, and forty-three more attempted. In thirty-five pictures there were fifty-four murders. In twelve pictures there were seventeen holdups, and in thirty-two pictures there were fifty.nine cases of assault and battery. I say movies are a school that teach CRIME!”

Having made this tremendous charge he went back to his dump-picking, the fierce fire in his eyes focused on the shimmering tin cans and general rub· bish scattered all about.

In a second he raised his hunched figure and asked again, “Are you a Christian?”

I felt a bit sheepish. This was the second time the dump-picker had asked me the same question. Did he doubt my Christianity?

“Of course, that is, I’m supposed to be,” I faltered.

He noticed he had pricked a hole in my mental armor and he followed through with, “Well then, show your colors! Shall a clean thing come forth from an unclean thing? Do we have to associate with a bunch of lustful, lewd, divorced, cigarette-smoking, drinking, gambling prostitutes for the sake of entertainment?”

I kept my tongue in cheek. I felt that Jim Krone wasn‘t in a mood for rebuttal. But my mind was working, wondering. 1 was perplexed to know that even I had been sucked into this vortex of crime and lust and lewdness inspired by hell itself. Then I thought of the text: “What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you? which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit which are God‘s” (I Cor. 6:19, 20).

When I thought of this text it made me blush for shame. Had I denied my Lord? Was I crucifying the Son of God anew? Was I selling our blessed Savior for a paltry thirty pieces of silver?

I was wakened from my reverie by my dump. picking friend. Again he asked, “Are you a Christian?” with a twinge of sorrow in his voice.

This was the third time he asked me if I was a Christian. I felt he was testing me as to the genuine· ness of my faith. Even as Christ asked Peter three times if he really loved Him, so Jim Krone was probing my conscience.

“I am a Christian, by the grace of God,” I answered firmly after a little thought. “And I hope to remember my Christ as King in my entertainments from now on.”

“Fine,” was his one word comment. And his eyes shone like a pair of jetty jewels. “Remember the words,” he encouraged, “To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it” (Rev. 2:17).

“But what about television?” I suddenly thought out loud.

“Same, many are old movie reruns, like I stated once in my comments about T.V.:

“Of course there are good programs, yes, Though few and far between. This picture box I must confess, Is far from pure and clean. It’s odd, the movie we condemn, As bawdy, vile, unfit, SO SATAN MOVED THE MOVIE IN, THE VERY ROOM WE SIT.”

I felt a sudden warmth for this humped-over dump-picking Mr. Krone. With a quick impulse I moved over to the spot where he was puttering away. I thrust out my hand to give him a hearty handclasp showing that we were indeed brothers in Christ. To my surprise he gave a weird gasp and tumbled over, a spurt of blood gushing from his mouth.

I looked about helplessly. Nobody was in calling distance. All I could do was lift up my dump-picker friend bodily and carry him to my car on the top of this mess of rubbish where I had left it.

Grunting and groaning, 1 managed to hoist and half–drag the limp Jim Krone until I had him tucked in the back seat of my car. Meanwhile I thought, poor dump–picker. Probably he was nearly starved to death. I might have known such chaps didn t have much to keep soul and body together. I hit upon the idea of going home and giving first aid, and getting my wife to help me. As I was nearing the house Jim Krone was breathing a bit easier, so I took courage.

I first warned my wife, and she, thoughtful soul, took a damp cloth and sponged his forehead. His jetty eyes blinked and I almost suspected he was smiling behind the lids.

Between the two of us we managed to get him to recline on the davcnport. But in a minute 1unior came along and started tussling with Jim Krones’ left leg. Then, suddenly the little lad started pulling around on his blunt nose, and, believe it or not, he pulled off the dumper-picker‘s black mustache, every hair of it.

“What,” I thought, “is he disguised?”

In another second our friend sat up, blinked his sooty eyes and looked about, as if he had come out of a trance.

“Place to wash up?” he asked.

“Sure, here,” I answered queerly, directing him to the lavatory.

A few minutes elapsed. My wife and I were worried that he might collapse while in the act of washing.

When our friend Jim Krone came marching out, my wife and I looked with unbelieving eyes. “Professor Burrow of Canterbury College,” we chimed.

Then he showed us the duds he had removed. They were simply old rags he had worn as a disguise to cover up his professor-clothes. Next he threw at us a little pillow, explaining, “This is what made me look like the Hunch Back of Notre Dame.”

We laughed. “But did you really faint, Professor? And what about the blood?”

“Simple,” he explained. “The hand is quicker than the eye. I merely spurted a bit of diluted catsup out of a rubber ball, and presto, it looked like I was bleeding badly. Just an old trick of Sherlock Holmes, folks. He did it to enter into his client’s homes and so did I.”

“Why?” we asked in the same breath.

“Ten o‘clock coffee” he chirruped. “And a nice slice of rye-bread with cream cheese to top it off.”

Coffee was served, and when the dump–picker, alias Jim Krone, alias Professor Burrows, moved in the direction of the door, I asked, “And why did you choose to preach your sermon from the depths of a dump?”

“Because it is a dump–picker‘s subject,” he evaded, and started once more to sing his Jingle Bells ditty with a lusty voice:

“Dented cans, rusted pans, jingle as they fall. We’re a great dump–picking crew, two hundred million in all.”

Then my wife and I responded with the second stanza, while he waved a hearty good-day across his shoulder:

“Rubbish black, ashes gray, paper, rags, a trunk. Sure’ I’m searchin’ for a jewel, but all I find is junk.”