He could astonish almost any person of moderate pretensions by the largeness of his ideas; and, of late years, his father had not pretended to hold an argument with him, for Simon always overwhelmed him by the force and elegance of his rhetoric.

He spoke familiarly of great men and great events.
His business relations--for Master Sneed was a business man--were not very complicated.

According to his own reckoning, he was the chief person in the employ of Messrs.

Sands & Co., wholesale and retail dry good Washington Street; one who had rendered immense service to the firm, and one without whom the firm could not possibly get along a single day; in short, a sort of Atlas, on whose broad shoulders the vast world of the Messrs.

Sands & Co.'s affairs rested.