One of these was a young Frenchman awaiting trial for an assault of which he declared that he had been the victim and that the complainant had been the aggressor. In order to converse with this one refined companion without being understood by their coarse associates, Dick resumed, with him, the study of French, and, as he now had plenty of time, he made rapid progress. There were several French books brought by this tutor's visitors, from which to learn the written language, and there was the tutor's own speech from which to acquire the pronunciation. It will be seen, thus, that Dick had plucked up heart, as it was his nature to do. He steadfastly refrained from looking into the future, and he made no provision in regard thereto. A grinning attorney had benevolently buttonholed him on his first day of imprisonment, and had proposed to take his case in hand, but, on learning how little money Dick would have for the luxury of a defence, this person had gone away, minus grin and benevolence. Dick had more money than he had offered the shark of the law, but he needed it in order to pay for quarters and food of a grade above that which had to be endured by those miserable prisoners who could pay nothing and who had to live on a penny loaf a day. The court in which Dick abode was neither the best nor the worst in Newgate; but the best, where those dwelt who paid most, was loathsome enough as to the company. To follow the example set by Wetheral himself in his memoirs, and to make swift work of his Newgate life,--for only in the "Beggar's Opera" is Newgate life a merry thing to contemplate,--let it be said at once that a true bill was duly found against him by the grand jury, and that his trial was set for the September sessions at the Old Bailey Sessions House, next door to Newgate Prison. As Dick surveyed the long list of witnesses who would be called for the Crown, and bethought him that he was without witness or counsel, the vision of Tyburn gallows was for a moment or two exceedingly vivid before his mind's eye. It was now about the middle of August, and that same day there came to Dick another piece of news brought in by visitors,--that on the fourth day of July the American rebels, in the State House in Philadelphia, had declared the colonies to be free and independent States. A thrill of joy and pride brought the tears to Dick's eyes, and the apparition of Tyburn, the very sense of the Newgate walls and herd around him, gave way to visions of things far over seas, of people rejoicing in the cities he had passed through towards Cambridge, of his father rubbing hands and crying "Well done!" over the news, at home in the Pennsylvania valley; of the cheers of Washington's men, and the sage comments of old Tom MacAlister. When he awoke to Newgate and the Tyburn phantom, he brought his teeth hard together and fretted at fate.