Opened like a cheese (Simile)
To describe how Jimmy opens a would-be highly secure safe in Logansport, O. Henry uses a simile, saying the safe is "opened like a cheese." The reader infers that Jimmy has no trouble opening the safe, and that it opens as smoothly as a knife splits open a wheel of cheese.
Threw out of its crater an eruption of bank-notes (Metaphor)
To emphasize the amount of money that Jimmy frees from a safe in Jefferson City, O. Henry writes that the old safe "became active and threw out of its crater an eruption of bank-notes amounting to five thousand dollars." In this metaphor, the author is comparing the high volume of cash leaving the safe to lava gushing from a volcano that had long sat dormant.
Jerked out as easy as pulling up a radish in wet weather (Simile)
Ben Price remarks that Jimmy has the only clamps that could remove a safe's combination knob as easily as a radish is pulled from wet soil. The simile emphasizes how Jimmy's tools and expertise lead to his trademark smooth and effortless safecracking technique.
