It was only another step toward a closer conformity to that grand rule
which I have made the guiding maxim of my life:

'When I must, I had better.'

I recommend this to other young men starting on their career.

The room in which we were was barely large enough for all of us to lie
down at once. Even then it required pretty close "spooning" together
--so close in fact that all sleeping along one side would have to turn at
once. It was funny to watch this operation. All, for instance, would be
lying on their right sides. They would begin to get tired, and one of
the wearied ones would sing out to the Sergeant who was in command of the
row--

"Sergeant: let's spoon the other way."

That individual would reply:

"All right. Attention! LEFT SPOON!!" and the whole line would at once
flop over on their left sides.

The feet of the row that slept along the east wall on the floor below us
were in a line with the edge of the outer door, and a chalk line drawn
from the crack between the door and the frame to the opposite wall would
touch, say 150 pairs of feet. They were a noisy crowd down there, and
one night their noise so provoked the guard in front of the door that he
called out to them to keep quiet or he would fire in upon them. They
greeted this threat with a chorus profanely uncomplimentary to the purity
of the guard's ancestry; they did not imply his descent a la Darwin, from