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tly near and the British Museum was within easy walking distance. The new member was a favorite with all the family, which consisted of three daughters besides the father and mother. Rizal's youthful interest in sleight-of-hand tricks was still maintained. During his stay in the Philippines he had sometimes amused his friends in this way, till one day he was horrified to find that the simple country folk, who were also looking on, thought that he was working miracles. In London he resumed his favorite diversion, and a Christmas gift of Mrs. Beckett to him, "The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox the Ventriloquist," indicated the interest his friends took in this amusement. One of his own purchases was "Modern Magic," the frontispiece of which is the sphinx that figures in the story of "El Filibusterismo." It was Rizal's custom to study the deceptions practiced upon the peoples of other lands, comparing them with those of which his own countrymen had been victims. Thus he could get an idea of the relative credulity of different peoples and could also account for many practices the origin of which was otherwise less easy to understand. His investigations were both in books and by personal research. In quest of these experiences he one day chanced to visit a professional phrenologist; the bump-reader was a shrewd guesser, for he dwelt especially upon Rizal's aptitude for learning languages and advised him to take up the study of them. This interest in languages, shown in his childish ambition to be like Sir John Bowring, made Rizal a congenial companion of a still more distinguished linguist, Doctor Reinhold Rost, the librarian of the India Office. The Raffles Library in Singapore now owns Doctor Rost's library, and its collection of grammars in seventy languages attests the wide range of the studies of this Sanscrit scholar. Doctor Rost was born and educated in Germany, though naturalized as a British subject, and he was a man of great musical taste. His family sometimes formed an orchestra, at other times a glee club, and furnished all the necessary parts from its own members. Rizal was a frequent visitor, usually spending his Sundays in athletic exercises with the boys, for he quickly became proficient in the English sports of boxing and cricket. While resting he would converse with the father, or chat with the daughters of the home. All the children had literary tastes, and one, Daisy, presented him with a c
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