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When told by a priest that it was wicked for him to live so

sumptuously, Castruccio said: "If that be a vice then 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.