Electrician Torrey possessed a quick understanding and was in the habit of
doing a thorough job whenever he tackled anything. He threw in the
switches as rapidly as he could operate them.
Story by story the great building was flooded with glory that mounted to
the upper windows and overflowed into the night with a veritable cascade
of brilliancy when the thousand bulbs of the dome's circlet flashed their
splendor against the sky. The lamps of the broad front portico and its
approaches added the final, dazzling touch to the general illumination.
From a sullen, gloomy hulk of a building, with its few lights showing like
glowering eyes in ambush, the State House was transformed into a temple of
glory, thrust into the heavens from the top of Capitol Hill, a torch that
signaled comforting candor, a reassuring beacon.
The surprise of the happening stilled the uproar.
Neither Morrison, inside, nor the mob, outside, was bothering with the
mental analysis of the psychology of the thing!
Something had happened! There was The Light! It threw into sharp relief
every upturned face in the massed throng. Their voices remained hushed.
Commander Lanigan, standing above them on a marble rail, his figure
outlined against a pergola column, did his best to put some of his
emotions into speech.
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