TALBOYS.
A sudden thought strikes me, Sir. Desdemona has said to Othello—
"Your dinner, and the generous Islanders
By you invited, do attend your presence."
How's this? This looks like long time—
NORTH.
It may look like what it chooses—but we have proved that we are now on the forenoon of the Second Day at Cyprus.
TALBOYS.
Would it not have been treating them too unceremoniously to have sent round the cards of invitation only the night before? As far as I have been able to learn, they have long been in the habit of giving not less than a week's invitation to dinner at Cyprus. In Glasgow it is commonly three weeks. And why "generous?" Because they, the Islanders, have given a series of splendid entertainments to Othello and his Bride.
NORTH.
No nonsense, sir. Othello had done what you or I would have done, had either of us been Governor of Cyprus. He had invited the "generous Islanders," immediately on his landing, to dine at the Castle "next day." Had he not done so, he had been a hunks. "Generous," you know, as well as I do, means high-born—men of birth—not generous of entertainments.