Night came.  It is the greatest spectacular night the American knows.  The noisy, good-natured crowds in the streets, the jostling, snail-moving crowds; the illuminated canvas-sheets in front of the newspaper offices; the blare of tin horns, the cries, the yells, the hoots and hurrahs; the petty street fights; the stalled surface cars; the swearing cabbies; the newsboys hawking their latest extras, men carrying execrable posters of roosters.  Hurrah! hurrah!  A flash goes over the canvas.

    In the 4th District
        Donnelly 608
        Warrington. 302

A roar that rose and died suddenly, and a wailing of tin horns.

    In Seven Districts
    Warrington 1,262
    Donnelly 1,196

Roars.  It was, going to be close.  Between times local advertisers used the sheets, or there were pictures of presidents past and present, crowned heads (always greeted with jeers), funny pictures, or returns from other states.

    In Nine Districts
    Donnelly 1,821
    Warrington 1,800

The crowds surged and billowed, and there was pandemonium.

The newspaper offices were having a busy time.  This period proves the man; he is a newspaper man or he is not.  There was a continuous coming and going of messengers, bringing in returns.  The reporters and editors were in their shirt-sleeves, most of them collarless.  Figures, figures, thousands of figures to sift and resift.  A fire-bell rings.  No one looks up save the fire reporter, and he is up and away at once.  Filtering through the various noises is the maddening rattle of the telegraph instruments.  Great drifts of waste-paper litter the floors.  A sandwich man serves coffee and cigars, and there is an occasional bottle of beer.  Everybody is writing, writing.

McQuade and his cohorts haunted the city room of the Times.  Things did not look well at all.  There were twelve more districts to hear from.  Donnelly seemed to be the coolest man in that office.

Warrington started home at nine.  Up to this time he had been indifferent, but it was impossible not to catch the spirit of this night.  Win or lose, however, he wanted to be alone.  So he went home, lighted the fire in his working-room, called his dog, and sat there dreaming.

Down town the clamor was increasing.  The great throngs round the bulletins were gathering in force.  Bonfires were flaring on corners.

    In 15 Districts
    Warrington 9,782
    Donnelly 9,036

Close, terribly close.  But those districts upon which the fight really depended had not yet turned up.  The big labor vote had not been accounted for.

The Call had notified its readers that when the returns were all in and the battle decided, it would blow a whistle.  If Warrington was elected, five blasts; if Donnelly, ten.