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 the remote monkey, but more immediate generation by a common domestic animal.