The cowboy said he would sing 2 more songs, so I set up at center stage and listened to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” and the Bee Gee’s “You Don’t Have to Show It.”

A plump, elderly Chinese woman seemed fascinated by my colorful paraphernalia. “Have you got time for a hula today?”

“Yes,” she said with a giggle.

I put the lei around her neck. “Do you know how to hula?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Ok, then, let’s go to the hukilau.” She continued to smile and nod in the affirmative. “So you know it?”

“Yes.”

“You must be from Hawaii.”

“Yes.”

When I started to play “The Hukilau Song,” however, it became clear that all she really knew was how to say “yes.” After a few bars, she gave up and, laughing, gave me back the lei, along with $2.

A group of Spanish girls danced next. After a ragged beginning, they soon fell into a rhythm and ended the dance in unison.

A 50-something man from Arizona handed me a tightly folded dollar bill. “I love New York,” he said.

Next came the Brazilians. First 2 women who fused the hula with a samba gave me $2, then an extended family, wearing white tee shirts that read “Klaus, 5 years, in New York,” gave me $3. Klaus was a handsome boy celebrating his 5th birthday.

A young woman from Utah wanted to hula. She called her sister over to join her. Soon after a mom and her 2 young daughters rode up on their bikes. Mom gave one of the girls a buck and sent her my way. “Thanks,” I said, picking up a lei and waving it at her. “Would you like to hula?”

“No,” she said, and she ran back to mom and the bikes.

An Englishman walked by. When he was right in front of me, I said, “Aloha.”

He immediately reached into his pocket and pulled out a dollar. “I have a fondness for the ukulele,” he told me. “I play it myself.”

“Let’s hear what you can do,” I said, handing him my uke. He noodled around for a minute, getting the feel of the instrument, then strummed out the opening chords to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”

By the time I packed up, with 12 singles in my pocket, everyone seemed to have gone home. The benches were empty. The young Chinese woman, who had been making big bubbles by the water, decided to haul her stuff closer to the arcade, where whatever people there were huddled in the shade.

“This spot no good,” she told me as she walked by.

I said, “Good luck.” It had been good enough for me.