After Jimmy settles down in Elmore to build a new life with Annabel, he decides to give up his old life of crime and pass his burglary tools onto his friend Billy. In the letter Jimmy sends to Billy offering up his tools, he describes the changes that have happened in his life, using a series of hyperboles in the process:
“I’m making an honest living, and I’m going to marry the finest girl on earth two weeks from now. It’s the only life, Billy—the straight one. I wouldn’t touch a dollar of another man’s money now for a million. After I get married I’m going to sell out and go West, where there won’t be so much danger of having old scores brought up against me. I tell you, Billy, she’s an angel. She believes in me; and I wouldn’t do another crooked thing for the whole world.”
The first hyperbole in this passage is Jimmy’s description of Annabel as “the finest girl on earth.” This exaggerated language is meant to capture the depth of Jimmy’s love for Annabel, as well as explain the motivating force behind his renunciation of his previous career—he has fallen in love and now wants to live a “straight” life. Later in the passage, Jimmy hyperbolically refers to Annabel as “an angel,” again underlining how deeply he loves her.
When Jimmy writes, “I wouldn’t touch a dollar of another man’s money now for a million,” and “I wouldn’t do another crooked thing for the whole world,” he is also intentionally using hyperbolic language to make a point. These statements are not meant to be taken literally but to show how much Jimmy has transformed during his time with Annabel in Elmore. Of course, for as much as Jimmy wishes to leave his past behind, he does end up using his burglary tools one last time to save young Agatha from being trapped in a safe, O. Henry’s way of suggesting that people can never fully leave their pasts behind.
