The parliamentary recess was an easier period than they had known since taking office, and they had time to attend to other projects, although the difficulties with Palmerston at the Foreign Office were meanwhile coming to a climax.

Koom is noted for the size and venom of its scorpions; and the dim recesses of the dark, cobwebby chamber, with its greasy walls and smoke-blackened ceiling, looked just the place for these undesirable bedfellows.