Joseph Chapman must contend not only with an execrable charity school, but also with the sense that he is different from other boys. At an execrable charity school, Joe encounters the predatory headmaster, Mr. Peevers, and a boy, Chowder, who becomes the one person he can trust. Joe is apprenticed to a progressive bookseller, but Chowder goes to the drunken greengrocer Tobias Cudworth. Joe eventually reconnects with Chowder, but soon they land in Newgate prison, facing trial.