In "Just Lather, That's All," the barber seems to be justifying his actions by saying that he's just a barber, not a murderer. Do you believe him?

My own personal ideas about this question are that we have
no reason to doubt the barber--I do not think he is presented as a narrator that is in
any way unreliable, in that we are given no reason to think he is deceiving either us or
himself. Certainly I can see why you might think he is, to excuse his cowardice in not
wanting to kill Captain Torres. However, I think at the end of this excellent story what
the barber experiences is not cowardice but a kind of epiphany or insight into his
position in the world and that of Captain Torres. Note what he
says:

But I
don't want to be a murderer. You came to me for a shave. And I perform my work
honourably... I don't want blood on my hands. Just lather, that's all. You are an
executioner and I am only a barber. Each person has his own place in the scheme of
things.

It is this central
realisation, that every person has his or her own place in the "scheme of things" that
gives this monologue a note of authenticity. The barber recognises that he is a barber
and that he does his job well. Likewise he comes to understand that Captain Torres has
his own place in the scheme of things - he does his job well too. Therefore I think the
barber comes to gain a kind of grudging respect for Captain Torres, which I think we can
say that Captain Torres shares by the end of the story.