Skin O' My Tooth

Skin O' My tooth, aka Patrick Mulligan, was created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy (author of the Scarlet Pimpernel series), and appeared in several stories which were collected in Skin o' My Tooth. His Memoirs, By His Confidential Clerk (1928).

Mulligan is an ugly, portly, but particularly sharp Irish lawyer who goes to great lengths (even unscrupulous ones) to get his clients off. Usually this involves him solving the crimes himself. The nickname comes from one client who described Mulligan freeing him "by the skin o' my tooth."

Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.