It is easy to “get ahead” in life by cheating and stealing, but it is much harder to be successful as an honest, hard working individual. Jimmy Valentine was a skilled young safecracker who returns to society after he is paroled from prison. Jimmy went to prison for cracking safes and stealing money with his special tools such as, drills, punches, braces and bits, mimmies, clamps, and augers. When Jimmy was released from prison after ten months of a four-year sentence, he found Annabel. Jimmy was truly dedicated to living a moral life because he fell in love with Annabel, gave up on robbery, and saved a little girl's life. First, Jimmy Valentine fell in love with Annabel Adams. Jimmy arrived in small, remote Elmore, Arkansas, where Jimmy had planned to rob their bank. Walking toward the hotel though, he encountered a beautiful young women. Their eyes met, and in that instant, Jimmy underwent a complete reformation. After talking to a boy on the street, Jimmy learns her name is Annabel. In addition, Jimmy could tell at the very moment that he and Annabel were going to be together forever. “Jimmy Valentine looked into her eyes, forgot what he was, and became another man.” (O. Henry, page 3). In the end, Annabel changed Jimmy completely, “... he and Annabel were engaged to be married …show more content…
May, Agatha’s sister, playfully locked Agatha in the bank vault, copying the act she had seen her grandfather perform on the vault. Jimmy had his tools and had to exposed his skills to save Agatha. Jimmy gained the respect of his new family here by using his “pet drill, biting smoothly into the steel door. In the minutes--breaking his own burglarious record--he threw back the bolts and opened the door.” (O. Henry, page 5). Jimmy opens the safe in record time, freeing the sobbing child. Furthermore, the special skills Jimmy had used in his criminal pursuits enable him to save a little girl's