You're a lad, you are, but you're as smart as paint.
 Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883). copy citation

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Author Robert Louis Stevenson
Source Treasure Island
Topic cleverness paint
Date 1883
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink https://www.gutenberg.org/files/120/120-h/120-h.htm

Context

“Here I have this confounded son of a Dutchman sitting in my own house drinking of my own rum! Here you comes and tells me of it plain; and here I let him give us all the slip before my blessed deadlights! Now, Hawkins, you do me justice with the cap'n. You're a lad, you are, but you're as smart as paint. I see that when you first come in. Now, here it is: What could I do, with this old timber I hobble on? When I was an A B master mariner I'd have come up alongside of him, hand over hand, and broached him to in a brace of old shakes, I would; but now—»” source

Meaning and analysis

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