ten minutes past eight
`` It was very grand , '' he sneered , `` very high-sounding and heroic , but I suppose you know , '' jerking his hand angrily toward a table where a reporter for the leading paper of the opposition was writing , `` that you 've given them the winning card . '' As he replied , in far-off tone , `` I hope so , '' the candidate for Governor was looking , not at the reporter who was sending out a new cry for the opposition , but into those faces aglow with the light of new understanding and new-born hopes . He stood there watching them filing out into the corridor , craning their necks to throw him a last look , and as he turned then and looked from the window it was to see that the storm had sobbed itself away , and that along the driveway of the reformatory grounds the young trees -- unbroken and unhurt -- were rearing their heads in the way they should go . They began work at seven-thirty , and at ten minutes past eight every hammer stopped . In the Senate Chamber and in the House , on the stairways and in the corridors , in every office from the Governor 's to the custodian 's they laid down their implements and rose to their feet . A long whistle had sounded through the building . There was magic in its note .