The _Leader_, being an afternoon paper, was going to issue a morning extra. To get this out the men would have to work all night, in addition to being on duty all day. It was hard on them, but they didn’t mind it once a year. No sooner had the last edition gone to press in the afternoon than preparations were made for getting out the next morning’s extra. The men in charge of the tables got them ready, spreading them out on large boards. The tables looked like big-sized war maps, with little blocks and spaces for each election district, a place devoted to each candidate, and squares where the total vote might be cast up. In the different polling places the last ballots were being put into boxes. The clerks and judges, with their eye on the clock, stood ready to call “time,” when the hour of sunset should be marked. The last voters were being corraled. In a few minutes the big contest would be over, all excepting the counting of the tickets. At each polling place policemen were stationed. It was the duty of the bluecoats to take charge of the ballot box, after the tickets had been counted. The officers had blanks, prepared by the different papers, and these were brought to City Hall, where the tally was taken. The newspapers had men at this point to make a record of the votes each candidate received. This record was quickly transmitted to the office, either by messenger or telephone. As he had had no experience at this work Larry was only a sort of reserve man, being held in readiness to be sent out on ordinary news. As the night was dull, except for election, he had a chance to see how the paper got the returns. At the big tables half a dozen men were stationed, anxiously waiting. With pencils poised they stood ready to jot down the figures under each candidate’s name. It was very quiet, and there was no excitement. Each man knew what he had to do, and was ready to do it. In rushed a messenger. He carried a long slip. This he handed to the man at the first table, the “caller-off.” “Seventeenth assembly district,” cried the reporter, and then in low but distinct tones he read each candidate’s name, and gave his vote. In the proper squares the markers set the figures down. There were several sets of tables, and, as soon as one was filled, the slip was passed to the set of men at the next one. In this way hundreds of districts were recorded. Through the night the work went on. As soon as a district was completed the talliers would cut it out from the sheet, and call off the figures to another man, who sat at an adding machine. This man quickly computed the total vote, and it was set down. Then the section of table was rushed upstairs to the composing room, where the printers quickly, on their type-setting machines, made a duplicate of it. Toward the end the work became hard and tiring. The returns came piling in, and the nerve tension under which the men worked was tremendous. But there was little excitement.