Friday was hot, humidity low. I considered center stage, and was a little relieved to find the cowboy in his usual spot. It was pleasant under the maple. Early on an English woman took a baggie full of change out of her purse, scooped out a handful into my case and soldiered on. “Good job,” she said. The bubble of anxiety I didn’t even know I had popped. Today was not going to be the day, the day I took in nothing, either.

A woman and her two daughters were happy to hula. I couldn’t place the accent. After she gave me a dollar, I asked her where she was from. She said, “Hrens.” I asked again. “Hrens.” I looked pleadingly to the children, who were no help. Then we figured it out; she was from France.

“Oh, Madame,” I said, embarrassed. “Je suis désolé.” She looked pretty annoyed. “Merci, merci beaucoup,” I waved to them as they walked toward the boathouse.

“Did you sleep in that shirt?” That was Mercer saying hello. In fact, I had worn today’s aloha shirt last night to dinner at his house. His wife, Ellen, gave me a quick peck on the cheek as she ran past. “Got to go to the bathroom.”

“How about ‘Anything but Love,’” said Mercer. We ran through it twice, I gave him 16 bars for a scat solo, and then I joined him for the final 16 bars for a big finish. Mercer bowed to the caricaturist on one side, to the woman with the baby carriage on the other, and to all the rowboats at sea.

“That’s too much,” said Mercer. Ellen had come back and put a dollar in my case. I got another peck and off they went to The Met, to see the Sargent exhibit.

Sisters, maybe 4 and 6, dressed in identical gingham dresses, came walking by with their mom, or nanny. They did a sedate, if not motionless hula. I tried to get them to move their arms; nanny/mom was showing them how, but they both had their eyes on me. The younger one sometimes shook her hands over her head, but seemed to know that wasn’t quite right. The nanny had one of the girls give me dollar. I figured she was the nanny, because mom would have given a dollar for me to both girls.

While the caricaturist drew his sister’s portrait, a young boy swayed with the music. He’d been there a while, and now that the portrait was almost done, he asked his mother for a dollar for the ukulele man. “Have you got time for a hula?”

“No, no thank you,” he said, smiling. He seemed happy to be asked.