The interviews lasted only half an hour.

In the middle of a sentence "Time!" was shouted, the keys rattled, and the little oasis had to be left for another journey over the desert sand.
Every three months I wrote a letter on a prison sheet.

Two sides were printed on, and the others ruled wide, with a notice that nothing was to be written between the lines.

No doubt the authorities were anxious to save the prisoners the pain of too much mental exertion.

I foiled them by writing small, and abbreviating nearly every word.