And mother went out; and just at tea-time next day a man came with
a rolled-up carpet, and father paid him, and mother said--

'If the carpet isn't in good condition, you know, I shall expect
you to change it.' And the man replied--

'There ain't a thread gone in it nowhere, mum. It's a bargain, if
ever there was one, and I'm more'n 'arf sorry I let it go at the
price; but we can't resist the lydies, can we, sir?' and he winked
at father and went away.

Then the carpet was put down in the nursery, and sure enough there
wasn't a hole in it anywhere.

As the last fold was unrolled something hard and loud-sounding
bumped out of it and trundled along the nursery floor. All the
children scrambled for it, and Cyril got it. He took it to the
gas. It was shaped like an egg, very yellow and shiny,
half-transparent, and it had an odd sort of light in it that
changed as you held it in different ways. It was as though it was
an egg with a yolk of pale fire that just showed through the stone.

'I MAY keep it, mayn't I, mother?' Cyril asked.

And of course mother said no; they must take it back to the man who
had brought the carpet, because she had only paid for a carpet, and
not for a stone egg with a fiery yolk to it.

So she told them where the shop was, and it was in the Kentish Town
Road, not far from the hotel that is called the Bull and Gate. It