Skin o' My Tooth

Skin O' My Tooth

cover of the 1928 1st edition
Author Baroness Orczy
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Publication date
1928

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."

fat and rosy and comfortable as an Irish pig, with a face as stodgy as a boiled currant dumpling. His hair, I believe, would be red if he gave it a chance at all, but he wears it cropped so close to his bulky head that he looks bald in some lights.

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