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 was a poky little shop, and the man was arranging furniture outside on the pavement very cunningly, so that the more broken parts should show as little as possible.

And directly he saw the children he knew them again, and he began at once, without giving them a chance to speak.
'No you don't' he cried loudly; 'I ain't a-goin' to take back no carpets, so don't you make no bloomin' errer.

A bargain's a bargain, and the carpet's puffik throughout.' 'We don't want you to take it back,' said Cyril; 'but we found something in it.' 'It must have got into it up at your place, then,' said the man, with indignant promptness, 'for there ain't nothing in nothing as I sell.
It's all as clean as a whistle.' 'I never said it wasn't CLEAN,' said Cyril, 'but--' 'Oh, if it's MOTHS,' said the man, 'that's easy cured with borax.