Washington had constant applications from persons who wished to write his life or paint his portrait. There was a sculptor named Wright who undertook to get a model of Washington's face. "Wright came to Mount Vernon," so Washington tells the story, "with the singular request that I should permit him to take a model of my face, in plaster of Paris, to which I consented with some reluctance. He oiled my features, and placing me flat upon my back, upon a cot, proceeded to daub my face with the plaster. Whilst I was in this ludicrous attitude, Mrs. Washington entered the room, and seeing my face thus overspread with the plaster, involuntarily exclaimed. Her cry excited in me a disposition to smile, which gave my mouth a slight twist, or compression of the lips, that is now observable in the busts which Wright afterward made." A more successful sculptor was Houdon, who was commissioned by Virginia to make a statue of Washington. He also took a plaster model, and the fine statue which he made stands in Richmond. A portrait painter, named Pine, also paid a visit to Mount Vernon about this time with a letter from one of Washington's friends to whom Washington wrote during Pine's visit: "'In for a penny, in for a pound,' is an old adage. I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit, like 'patience on a monument,' whilst they are delineating the lines of my face. It is a proof among many others of what habit and custom can effect. At first I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no dray moves more readily to the thill than I do to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that I yielded a ready obedience to your request, and to the views of Mr. Pine." Washington was a most considerate and courteous host. He was very fond of young people, but his silent ways and the reputation which he enjoyed as a great man made it difficult for the young always to be easy in his presence. The story is told of his coming into a room once, when dancing was going on, and the sport suddenly ceased. Washington begged the young people to go on, but they refused until he left the room. Then, after they felt free again to dance, he came back and peeped through the open door. [Illustration: ONE OF A SET OF FIRE-BUCKETS AT MOUNT VERNON.]