Today's scheduled Assembly vote is not unlike the story of the American tenor singing at La Scala. After belting out an aria from Verdi, there is thunderous applause. So he sings an encore, which is followed by more ovations and yet more encores.
Eventually he pleads with the audience. "Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your wonderful acclaim, but physically I cannot sing another note." And then loudly from the front row: "No, no, you keep singing until you get it right."
Today, after last Friday's bum-note performance, the pro-agreement bloc, under the disciplined baton of the Northern Secretary, Dr John Reid, should finally get it right. Although, considering the bizarre nature of this business, it would be folly to rule out another foul-up.
On Friday, one of the Women's Coalition's two MLAs, Ms Jane Morrice, redesignated as a unionist. Today, after the frantic discussions and horse-trading of the weekend, at least three of the Alliance's five MLAs will similarly and temporarily switch allegiance to the Ulster Unionist side.
The arithmetic, simply explained, runs like this. On Friday, Mr Trimble lost by one vote, with 30 designated unionists against him and 29 for. Without the Alliance Party, Mr Trimble's vote is now down to 28, because one of his supporters, Mr David Ervine, of the Progressive Unionist Party, went to Australia at the weekend.
Accordingly, with three extra Alliance Assembly members on his side today, he should win by 31 votes to 30 - assuming that everyone turns up.
The DUP and the other anti-agreement groups are now singing from an old nationalist songbook: "Perfidious Albion, Perfidious Allianc"e is their refrain.
Mr Peter Robinson was last night also consulting with legal friends to determine whether he could throw a spanner in the works. At midnight on Saturday night Dr Reid, in the absence of a First and Deputy First Minister, had the option of returning to direct rule or calling fresh elections, but he did neither.
Dr Reid, of course, could have suspended just for yesterday and restored devolution today to allow the vote for Mr David Trimble as First Minister and for the SDLP's Mr Mark Durkan as Deputy First Minister. That, however, would have triggered accusations of bad faith from republicans. It seems that part of the deal for a start to IRA decommissioning was that there would be no further suspensions.
If there is a legal mechanism which could force the postponement of today's vote the DUP will use it. Dr Reid in turn appears to be arguing that, while he is mindful of his obligations, it is only "common sense" that, if a First and Deputy First Minister can be elected today, he should hang fire. What is certain is that the No wing of unionism will extricate maximum advantage from what undoubtedly is an embarrassing situation for the Yes wing. "Alliance have managed to make hypocrisy an art form", said Mr Robinson on Saturday. "Dirty underhand chicanery from David Trimble and his nationalist and republican friends", added Mr Sammy Wilson. Expect more of the same today.
One of the five Alliance MLAs who will not be switching sides is the party's former deputy leader, Mr Seamus Close, who is holding to his line of last week of their not being "a snowball's chance in hell" of his redesignating.
This is a deeply sensitive issue for Alliance and its new leader, Mr David Ford, particularly after he said on Friday that his party, unlike the Women's Coalition, would "not be dressing up for Hallowe'en".
There was much internal discussion and soul-searching over the weekend. "This issue is to us what decommissioning is to the IRA. We need something in exchange for redesignating", a party source explained.
An element of the weekend negotiations at Hillsborough and Stormont and over the phone from Downing Street and Dublin was to ensure that Alliance would have cover for its action. The central argument expressed by Dr Reid and others is that it is untenable that 70 per cent of the Assembly should vote to return Mr Trimble as First Minister and yet, under the rules, he could not be elected.
The SDLP and Sinn FΘin have grave misgivings about creating a situation where Alliance could hold the balance of power in the Assembly, but they co-operated to ensure that Alliance could at least try to justify its action today. The redesignation motion will be proposed by the UUP and seconded by the SDLP to illustrate that this is not Alliance alone, but the pro-agreement parties working in unison.
In the next few weeks Dr Reid will initiate a review of the Assembly voting procedures, as is permissible under the Belfast Agreement. "The bottom line is that we want our votes to count. At the moment, we are in no-man's-land between unionism and nationalism, and that isn't good enough", said an Alliance insider.
Most pro-agreement parties, while embarrassed at the nature of this enterprise, were dismissive of DUP complaints. It was just a question of "out-manoeuvring" the manoeuvres in the No camp, said Mr Martin McGuinness.
This point was taken up by Dr Reid, who implicitly said it was hypocritical of Dr Paisley or his colleagues to complain of chicanery when his "rotating ministers were half in and half out" of the Executive.
Sir Bob Cooper, a founder-member of Alliance, was furious that the party had not redesignated for Friday's vote. "I am so disgusted they lined up in essence with Ian Paisley, who for the last 40 years has attempted to destroy everything that promised hope for the people of Northern Ireland", he told the BBC.