has listened quietly when others have spoken sharply to him, as on the following occasions.  He had caused a ducat to be given for a partridge, and was taken to task for doing so by a friend, to whom Castruccio had said:  “You would not have given more than a penny.”  “That is true,” answered the friend.  Then said Castruccio to him:  “A ducat is much less to me.”  Having about him a flatterer on whom he had spat to show that he scorned him, the flatterer said to him:  “Fisherman are willing to let the waters of the sea saturate them in order that they make take a few little fishes, and I allow myself to be wetted by spittle that I may catch a whale”; and this was not only heard by Castruccio with patience but rewarded.  When told by a priest that it was wicked for him to live so sumptuously, Castruccio said:  “If that be a vice than you should not fare so splendidly at the feasts of our saints.”  Passing through a street he saw a young man as he came out of a house of ill fame blush at being seen by Castruccio, and said to him:  “Thou shouldst not be ashamed when thou comest out, but when thou goest into such places.”  A friend gave him a very curiously tied knot to undo and was told:  “Fool, do you think that I wish to untie a thing which gave so much trouble to fasten.”  Castruccio said to one who professed to be a philosopher:  “You are like the dogs who always run after those who will give them the best to eat,” and was answered:  “We are rather like the doctors who go to the houses of those who have the greatest need of them.”  Going by water from Pisa to Leghorn, Castruccio was much disturbed by a dangerous storm that sprang up, and was reproached for cowardice by one of those with him, who said that he did not fear anything.  Castruccio answered that he did not wonder at that, since every man valued his soul for what is was worth.  Being asked by one what he ought to do to gain estimation, he said:  “When thou goest to a banquet take care that thou dost not seat one piece of wood upon another.”  To a person who was boasting that he had read many things, Castruccio said:  “He knows better than to boast of remembering many things.”  Someone bragged that he could drink much without becoming intoxicated.  Castruccio replied:  “An ox does the same.”  Castruccio was acquainted with a girl with whom he had intimate relations, and being blamed by a friend who told him that it was undignified for him to be taken in by a woman, he said:  “She has not taken me in, I have taken her.”  Being also blamed for eating very dainty foods, he answered:  “Thou dost not spend as much as I do?” and being told that it was true, he continued:  “Then thou art more avaricious than I am gluttonous.”  Being invited by Taddeo Bernardi, a very rich and splendid citizen of Luca, to supper, he went to the house and was shown by Taddeo into a chamber hung with silk and paved with fine stones representing flowers and foliage of the most beautiful colouring.  Castruccio gathered some saliva in his mouth and spat