These soldiers - presumably cavalrymen like Lee Goodwin - are returning to San Francisco from their deployment in the Philippines when Ruby asks them about what has happened to Lee. When she lets one of them pick her up, he paws her drunkenly while telling her about Lee killing another soldier in a fight over "that nigger woman" (277). American forces were first sent to the Philippines in 1898 to fight the Spanish, but soon were fighting against Philippine nationalists. The Philippines were an American territory from 1898 to 1946.
We first hear about this man during Clarence Snopes' antisemitic rant about "a Memphis jew lawyer" (266). We see him for the first time on the day Temple testifies in court; he sits "picking his teeth" at the prosecution's table. There Horace refers to him as "a Jew lawyer from Memphis" (282). The narrative's description is less overtly hostile, but phrases like "his skull was capped closely by tight-curled black hair" and "he had a long, pale nose" (281) do emphasize his ethnicity. His connection with Memphis suggests he represents Popeye's interests.
The town barber listens silently while Clarence complains about the "Memphis jew lawyer" who wouldn't pay full price for the information he was trying to sell, then slyly lets Clarence know how little of his story he accepts at face value (266). His open-mindedness identifies this barber with Henry Hawkshaw, the man who owns the Jefferson barber shop in Faulkner's short story "Dry September," published a month before Sanctuary appeared - but the barber in the novel is not named.
