Mr David Trimble with Sir Reg Empey alongside gave a press conference in the great hall of Parliament Buildings, Stormont, at lunchtime yesterday.
It's a bruising political and legal war of attrition out there, and in that context it seemed reasonable to ask did he not feel "like throwing in the towel?" The Ulster Unionist leader found this amusing. "When did you think that I became a quitter?" he asked, laughing.
It is the type of comment that will provide reassurance for the British and Irish governments and the rest of the pro-Belfast Agreement bloc. Mr Trimble in just two weeks has ridden a breathtaking roller-coaster through the optimism generated by the IRA decommissioning act to the despair of seeing two UUP mavericks blocking his election.
As well as the political turmoil of recent days, Mr Trimble must have endured his own mental turmoil. Nonetheless, following yesterday's debate, Mr Trimble seemed psychologically girded for, as he said himself, the "twists and turns" of the days and weeks ahead. So barring accident, illness or sabotage - and nobody's ruling those out - Mr Trimble should be returned as Northern Ireland's First Minister this morning.
His nationalist sidekick should be SDLP leader in waiting, Mr Mark Durkan.
There were two twists to this tale yesterday. First of all the DUP failed in its High Court attempt to prevent today's vote. The party was rather overstating its case when it claimed that the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, had "performed a seismic U-turn on his obligation to propose a date for an election".
Part of the DUP's argument was that Dr Reid was legally obliged to call elections from midnight on Saturday when Northern Ireland was without a First and Deputy First Minister. However, Dr Reid conceded on Sunday that he did indeed face this statutory obligation, but that it was only "common sense" and "reasonable" that he should have some time before deciding when to send Northern Ireland to the polls again.
The judge agreed that he should have this latitude. If the election of Mr Trimble proceeds as planned today, it will then be obvious that there is now no need to call fresh elections. Dr Reid instead may announce that the next Assembly elections will be in May 2003, as every MLA already knows. Thus are statutory obligations met and immediate political hurdles surmounted.
There was also scheming and counter-scheming at Stormont itself. Dr Ian Paisley and the No corner of the Assembly brought forward a petition of concern. The petition, which required 30 signatories, meant that the motion for Alliance to redesignate some of its members had to be put back 24 hours to this morning.
Mr Trimble and the Yes corner, realising that without the redesignations it would again lose the First Minister vote, immediately followed with its petition of concern putting back the election of First and Deputy First Minister until this morning, but after the vote on the redesignations. Without this sharp response, the pro-agreement side would have been badly snookered.
The anti-agreement unionists had the best lines yesterday. They raided Roget's Thesaurus to express their fury and contempt for Alliance's decision to engage in "political tranvestitism", as Mr Robert McCartney put it.
This act was variously depicted by No unionists as a charade, a debasement, a defilement, despicable, a disfigurement, disgusting, disgraceful, a farce, a fraud, horse-trading, obscene, a pantomime, political shysterism, skulduggery, triggery. And much more besides.
The Alliance leader, Mr David Ford, was unrepentant. Three party MLAs were briefly switching to the Yes unionist camp, not to save Mr Trimble, but to safeguard the agreement. Earlier yesterday, he told BBC Radio Ulster that he would rather be the back end of a pantomime horse than be the man who brought down the agreement.
Mr McCartney and Mr Sammy Wilson had enormous fun with that phrase but that is what yesterday was about: pro-agreement politicians exploiting procedures to maintain the agreement and anti-agreement politicians doing precisely the same to undermine it.
Sir Reg Empey mustered something of a defence for the Yes Ulster Unionists. He accused the No camp of not having the "bottle" to engage in the negotiations which led to the Belfast Agreement. The DUP, while claiming to be opposed to the process, "were fully participating in it . . . If we said we were closing the place down [the Assembly], they would be handcuffed to the radiators".
The Sinn FΘin education minister, Mr Martin McGuinness, said the "comedians" in the DUP and other No parties enjoyed themselves yesterday, but the agreement would live on.
"We will have the last laugh," said Mr McGuinness.
And that is what the governments are hoping: that there will be a First and Deputy First Minister in place today and that over the next 19 months, Northern Ireland can learn to love devolution and the Belfast Agreement.