the dwarfs did not see their danger till it was too late. then they called for camphor and bitter apple and oil of lavender and yellow soap and borax; and some of the dwarfs even started to get these things, but long before any of them could get to the chemist's, all was over. the moths ate and ate and ate till the sealskin dwarfs, being sealskin throughout, even to the empty hearts of them, were eaten down to the very life and they fell one by one on the snow and so came to their end. and all around the north pole the snow was brown with their flat bare pelts.