Mo Mowlam plumped herself down beside John O'Donoghue and Fianna Fail's Northern expert Martin Mansergh late on Wednesday night after a rather successful day's work. The camera lights beamed on the Northern Secretary. She beamed back.
First mission accomplished. Wouldn't Tony be pleased? Lots of nice things for him to say about Northern Ireland at next week's British Labour Party conference.
"Can I just begin by apologising for keeping you waiting for so long?" was how she opened the press conference.
"Waiting, for so long!" protested Deric Henderson of the Press Association in mock horror. "It's only been 16 months!"
"It's been 800 years!" interjected the political journalist Eamonn Mallie.
But journalists realised the significance of the long day. They didn't even snort - well, not too much - when Mowlam and Justice Minister O'Donoghue, and Gerry Adams, and John Hume, and Seamus Close of Alliance, started bandying words like historic, landmark and momentous.
David Trimble had no compunction about keeping reporters or anyone else waiting. As Mowlam and O'Donoghue chatted by the entrance to the press prefab he harrumphed: "We may be keeping the two governments waiting outside - but that is the best place for them in this weather."
Curiously, for all the late-night excitement outside Castle Buildings on Wednesday, inside it had been rather an anti-climactic occasion. As we all arrived at Stormont early in the day the expectation was that the UUP leader, Mr Trimble, would dig in his heels, and spin out allowing the talks proceed to real issues until this coming Monday at least.
But, pretty early, the word was out: Trimble had fought a long battle on decommissioning, going back all the way to the start of this talks process on June 10th last year. And now, 16 months on, he was implicitly conceding that there was no more merit in trying to defeat the view of the two governments and the other seven parties to the process.
But still there was caution, for always lurking in the background was a fear that some hidden clause, or some esoteric wording, in the procedural motion moving the process to substantive negotiations, or some triumphalist comment from some quarter, would send the opposing sides scuttling back to their trenches.
And indeed there was a hurdle to surmount: consent, and its wording in the motion. But even here one would have to be well clued in on Northern arcana to spot why the issue led to difficulties between the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists, the Ulster Democratic Party and the Progressive Unionist Party.
Consent, however, means different things to nationalists and unionists. For David Trimble and the loyalist parties it means majority rule in Northern Ireland. For nationalists it means a consensus of nationalist and unionist opinion on this island. The SDLP wanted the interpretation to be loose. Arcane, but tricky. There was to-ing and fro-ing to the governments from both sides, but no direct contact between the unionists and the SDLP.
There was a plenary due for around 4 p.m. That was adjourned. Another one for teatime. That was adjourned. Again around 7.30 p. m. Again an adjournment. Politicians strolled about. Around 4.30 p.m. Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness, Sinn Fein's chief negotiator, took a walk outside.
They needed a breath of fresh air, because inside was so stultifying, explained Mr Adams. "They want their faces on the early-evening television reports," said the broadcasting hacks.
Sinn Fein was peripheral to the wheeling and dealing. They had decided, rather jesuitically, that they were going to vote against the consent section of the motion, in full realisation that under the rule of sufficient consensus the motion would still be passed, and they would still be at talks.
Instead they made their impact in the corridors of Castle Buildings, in the restaurant, outside the building, in the car-park - anywhere, in fact, where they could spot a unionist prey. This was Sinn Fein's charm offensive, which unionists found offensive rather than charming. Martin McGuinness was chief-of-staff of this strategy.
If there was a unionist within a 20-yard range anywhere on the vast Stormont estate McGuinness was off, head down, proffering his hand for a shake, as persistent as Mrs Doyle of Father Ted fame.
Ken Maginnis was a particular target. While McGuinness would insist on his sincerity, even some SDLP politicians suspected that the Sinn Fein man was really engaging in a wind-up. One had a vision of McGuinness exhorting: "Arrah, shake hands, Ken. Ah, ya will, ya will, ya will, ya will, ya will." Even after the deal was done Mr McGuinness pursued Mr Maginnis outside Castle Buildings.
"Well, Ken, well, Ken, you know you're going to have to talk to me one day."
"You'll see I don't talk to murderers," he was heard saying to a security man while studiously ignoring McGuinness.
But it did seem to rattle him. Throughout the day politicians came out to speak to reporters and to do TV interviews. Mr Maginnis almost balked at doing a Channel Four interview when he spotted this reporter and another man standing nearby. "Is that fellow a Shinner?" he asked.
No, he's the Irish Independent reporter who has probably interviewed you a hundred times, he was told. Sorry, said Ken.
Eventually, Reg Empey of the UUP, Gary McMichael of the UDP and David Ervine of the PUP wandered into the SDLP offices around 8 p.m. They had a brief discussion, and agreed on a compromise wording which re-endorsed the commitment to consent without being dogmatic on the issue.
Then, at 9.15 p.m., all the parties went into the main conference room to adopt the procedural motion. But not before Adams read out a fairly detailed paper explaining why Sinn Fein was opposing the consent section of the motion.
It prompted Davy Adams of the UDP to lean over to Brid Rodgers of the SDLP and mutter "Oh God, now we have a green Bob McCartney", a reference to the legalistic tendency of the UK Unionist Party leader, before he boycotted proceedings, to speak at length on a multitude of matters.
But at last the acting chairman, Harri Holkeri, was able to pronounce that yes, we have a real talks process. It was the cue for a spontaneous burst of applause from everyone present, even from Gerry Adams and David Trimble.
Then, all the politicians steamed outside to speak to the assembled reporters, united at least in their relief - and even in a sense of elation - that politics could begin.
History moves slowly in Northern Ireland. And here there was real movement. A long way to go, of course, but the wonder, as far as politicians and press were concerned, was that a deal was done at all.