THE Dail chamber was as full as you're likely to find it more than 100 TDs - for the start of the motion of confidence in the Government. The Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, was in a preaching mood.
He spoke patiently, indulgently, to the clamorous and unruly Fianna Fail chaps on the Opposition benches.
Like the US president (Gerald Ford) who could not chew gum and run at the same time, if they are shouting they are unable to listen ... If only they listened, they would gain some knowledge he pronounced above the din.
But Ford and his chewing gum cut little ice with Fianna Fail. They were the engaged audience to "The Blame Game", the appellation bestowed by Maire Geoghegan-Quinn on the last Government debacle - the hepatitis C scandal - and now borrowed by Mr Bruton in his defence of his Justice Minister.
"I couldn't put it better myself" intoned the Taoiseach. "It is just that - a game - a game of blame as far as the Opposition is now concerned. Well, I do not think it is a game. What happened is serious..."
Peals of derisory laughter saluted his initial gallant attempts to be earnest and to outline the measures his Government had agreed to implement. His news that responsibility for the prison service will be transferred from Justice to an independent board provoked cries of: "That's confidence in your Minister".
And, the former minister for justice, Ray Burke, bent over with the comedy of it all, led the merry assault when Mr Bruton declared that the Centre for Management and Organisation Development of the Department of Finance - like a NASA space probe - has developed "a tracking system for ministerial correspondence". Turning to his colleague, Charlie McCreevy, Ray later chuckled: "He's not taking the tablets, he's definitely not taking the tablets."
Mr Bruton left his script from time-to-time, once to note sadly how Fianna Fail was like a long playing, scratched record, obsessed with the fall of the last government.
"Fianna Fail is in Opposition today because your partners did not trust you," he told them in that paternal tone.
"And the feeling was mutual," barked Brian Cowen from his pivotal perch on the Opposition benches. Thoughts of Labour bring out the dark side in Fianna Fail and Brian taunted, "Wait till Dick (Spring) comes back from Khartoum ...
Laurence of Arabia will be back."
The Taoiseach was well aware that the Blame Game plot was, for now at least, unravelling before the Opposition's eyes. He advised Fianna Fail, in counselling parlance, to "come to terms with the past" and won wild applause from his Fine Gael colleagues after his performance.
But, when all the Labour TDs failed to join the acclaim, Noel Treacy called out: "Check your mushrooms, Taoiseach, some of them are in the dark."
Then it was Bertie's turn and a kind of lassitude settled on the chamber. He was not in killer mood; he was not even wounding. Mary Harney of the Progressive Democrats had a sharper verbal armoury but, at the end of the first round of the set-piece Dail "debate", Mrs Owen can face tonight's vote on the confidence motion with assurance.
After all, Laurence of Arabia had just landed, not from Khartoum, but Cairo. His sword was in its scabbard and her head was still on her shoulders.