eight o'clock
Everywhere men swarmed over the work , and the buzz of the electric lights and the sounds of hundreds of hammers blended into a confused hum . If you had walked to the east end of the building , here and there balancing along a plank or dodging through gangs of laborers and around moving timbers , you would have seen stretching from off a point not halfway through to the ground , the annex bins , rising so steadily that it was a matter only of a few weeks before they would be ready to receive grain . Now another walk , this time across the building to the north side , would show you the river house , out there on the wharf , and the marine tower rising up through the middle with a single arc lamp on the topmost girder throwing a mottled , checkered shadow on the wharf and the water below . At a little after eight o'clock , Peterson , who had been looking at the stairway , now nearly completed , came out on the distributing floor . He was in good spirits , for everything was going well , and Bannon had frankly credited him , of late , with the improvement in the work of the night shifts . He stood looking up through the upper floors of the cupola , and he did not see Max until the timekeeper stood beside him . `` Hello , Max , '' he said .