Before this morning’s Board of Aldermen meeting, Stephen Conway announced - to no one in particular - that he was preparing to put on a show at today’s session.

Conway, one of City Hall’s great debaters, did not disappoint.

The Eighth Ward alderman put his oratory skills to work delivering a populist soliloquy against an anti-panhandling bill pushed by Alderman Lyda Krewson, who represents the Central West End.

“This bill is poorly written - it won’t pass muster,” said Conway, an attorney.

Conway examined the bill with a legal microscopic, questioning whether the provisions would prevent a blind woman from asking for help crossing the street, or whether asking a stranger to use their cell phone would meet the definition of panhandling.

“Um, maybe,” Krewson conceded.

Then Conway motioned toward the homeless individuals in the gallery and brought out a prop - a surgical mask.

“What we are asking them to do,” Conway said, pulling the mask over his face, “is be silent. Don’t talk to us.”

After close to an hour of procedural wrangling, Conway’s push to send the bill back to committee failed, but not without a parting shot from veteran lawmaker Fred Wessels.

“I would remind the alderman from the Eighth Ward that alderman get paid on a biweekly basis - not by the word,” Wessels said. “While I like to listen to him, there should be a limit.”

Conway: Crack down on panhandling raises his ire