Definition of "astuteness"

Soda was added to an interval pregnant with legal stultifications, and the trooper continued to say nothing till he had taken a swig at his almost neat whisky. It fulfilled its function of humanizing him on the spot, though he refused to concede his astuteness to a mere gulp of liquor.

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, page 161