With the first streak of dawn the beetles decamped, and the fray
ended. The work of devastation had been colossal. Corpses were strewn
everywhere--and it took the combined household hours, before all
evidences of the slaughter were obliterated. As for Gladys, she had
not slept all night and was a wreck.
"I can never go through another night of it," she said to Miss
Templeton. "Do you think we shall ever get rid of the horrible
things?"
"We can but try, dear!" Miss Templeton said consolingly, and she
accompanied Gladys up to town, where they inquired of doctors, and
chemists, and all sorts of possible and impossible people; and
returned to Kew laden with chemicals, and patent beetle destroyers.
But though they tried remedies by the score, none were of use, and the
beetles repeated their performance of the preceding night.
Gladys did not go to bed: surrounded with lighted candles, she sat on
the top of a wardrobe till daybreak. The following morning the house
was fumigated with sulphur; and people were told off to kill the
cockroaches, as they made their escape out of doors. By this means an
enormous number were killed; but at night they were just as bad as
before.
An engineer friend then suggested a freezing-machine. The temperature
of the house was reduced to ten degrees below zero; the pipes froze
(and burst next day), the milk froze, the housemaid's toes and the
cook's little finger of the left hand froze, everything froze; and
presumably the beetles froze, for there was not one to be seen.
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