"William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity fair" - читать интересную книгу автора

Rebecca. "What is it?" said she, turning an appealing
look to Mr. Joseph.

"Capital," said he. His mouth was full of it: his face
quite red with the delightful exercise of gobbling.
"Mother, it's as good as my own curries in India."

"Oh, I must try some, if it is an Indian dish," said
Miss Rebecca. "I am sure everything must be good that
comes from there."

"Give Miss Sharp some curry, my dear," said Mr.
Sedley, laughing.

Rebecca had never tasted the dish before.

"Do you find it as good as everything else from India?"
said Mr. Sedley.

"Oh, excellent!" said Rebecca, who was suffering
tortures with the cayenne pepper.

"Try a chili with it, Miss Sharp," said Joseph, really
interested.

"A chili," said Rebecca, gasping. "Oh yes!" She thought
a chili was something cool, as its name imported,
and was served with some. "How fresh and green they
look," she said, and put one into her mouth. It was
hotter than the curry; flesh and blood could bear it no
longer. She laid down her fork. "Water, for Heaven's
sake, water!" she cried. Mr. Sedley burst out laughing
(he was a coarse man, from the Stock Exchange, where
they love all sorts of practical jokes). "They are real
Indian, I assure you," said he. "Sambo, give Miss Sharp
some water."

The paternal laugh was echoed by Joseph, who thought
the joke capital. The ladies only smiled a little. They
thought poor Rebecca suffered too much. She would have
liked to choke old Sedley, but she swallowed her
mortification as well as she had the abominable curry
before it, and as soon as she could speak, said, with a comical,
good-humoured air, "I ought to have remembered the
pepper which the Princess of Persia puts in the cream-
tarts in the Arabian Nights. Do you put cayenne into
your cream-tarts in India, sir?"

Old Sedley began to laugh, and thought Rebecca
was a good-humoured girl. Joseph simply said, "Cream-