“Hold me hat,” he barks, demonstrating Rlickman’s most reliable gimmick.

“You got the hat in your hand. You’re stuck,” he explains. “Where does the money go?”

Rlickman’s beat-up, old hat, with a dollar bill stuck on the underside of the brim, was just one of his gags.

Some pranks were innocent. He kept step with people talking on cell phones and mimicked their conversations. He grabbed women’s hands, only to plant a kiss on his own arm. When women posed for pictures with him, he pulled off his nose and kissed them on the cheek.

He tied balloon animals and flowers for children, as many as 200 a day before tourism dropped off after Sept. 11 and around 100 a day since then.

Some gags were offensive. He grabbed women’s rear ends and flirted with them. He nastily told off people who didn’t give him money.

He made fun of bald men passing on the street: “It’s cheaper to buy a hat than Rogaine,” he told them.

He made fun of gays: “Are you a homo sapien?” he asked.

And he whistled—with a shrill, attention-grabbing referee’s whistle. When another street performer had attracted a big crowd, Rlickman moved up close by and started blowing.

“He pissed me off often,” Newell says, chuckling. “All the sudden there’s this whistle 10 feet away and my crowd’s gone and Perri’s sitting there doing balloons.”

The gags worked. Rlickman’s formula was roughly “a buck a balloon” plus more money for other tricks. On an ordinary day, he earned $200 to $400, not as much as jugglers, but a good haul for a street performer.

Being a clown gave Rlickman freedom, Newell says, and he often talked about his free-speech rights.

Many friends also say that Perri the Hobo read people well and could gauge their reactions.

“He crossed the line often but never crossed the line with someone who wouldn’t put up with it,” Newell says. “He never walked up to a woman and grabbed her butt who didn’t smile. He read people well. He knew whose butt he could grab.”

Another Brattle Square street performer, 77-year-old singer Bill Hamill, also defends the man he calls a “champeen clown” against the judgment of detractors who felt the act went too far, too often.