eight o'clock
Men on bicycles brought in the alarms ; then , as twilight thickened , men on foot . Chief Croker promptly established lookouts in all the tall towers , as watchmen used a hundred years ago to watch the night . And , up-town , Smith cursed the necessity of reading his evening paper by candle-light ; and Mary , the cook , grumbled because she could not telephone the grocery for some forgotten ingredient ; and Jones ' dinner party was very hilarious over the joke on their host ; and men swore and their wives worried because they had perforce to be very late to dinner . At eight o'clock , two hours after the inception of the curious phenomena , the condition suddenly passed . The intimation came to the various parts of the city in different ways . Strangely enough , only gradually did the lights and transportation facilities resume their functions . Most of the dynamos were being inspected by puzzled experts .