the law they are not discharged, because they
have not paid the person whom they were bound to pay.

11 It is open to every one to decline a commission of agency, but
acceptance must be followed by execution, or by a prompt resignation, in
order to enable the principal to carry out his purpose either personally
or by the appointment of another agent. Unless the resignation is made
in such time that the principal can attain his object without suffering
any prejudice, an action will lie at his suit, in default of proof by
the agent that he could not resign before, or that his resignation,
though inconvenient, was justifiable.

12 A commission of agency may be made to take effect from a specified
future day, or may be subject to a condition.

13 Finally, it should be observed that unless the agent's services
are gratuitous, the relation between him and the principal will not be
agency proper, but some other kind of contract; for if a remuneration is
fixed, the contract is one of hiring. And generally we may say that in
all cases where, supposing a man's services are gratuitous, there would
be a contract of agency or deposit, there is held to be a contract of
hiring if remuneration is agreed upon; consequently, if you give clothes
to a fuller to clean or to finish, or to a tailor to mend, without
agreeing upon or promising any remuneration, you can be sued by the
action on agency.

TITLE XXVII. OF QUASI-CONTRACTUAL OBLIGATION

Having enumerated the different kinds of contracts, let us now examine
those obligations also which do not originate, properly speaking, in
contract, but which, as they do not arise from a delict, seem to be
quasicontractual.

1 Thus, if one man has managed the business of another during the
latter's absence, each can sue the other by the action on uncommissioned
agency; the direct action being available to him whose business was
managed, the contrary action to him who managed it. It is clear that
these actions cannot properly be said to originate in a contract, for
their peculiarity is that they lie only where one man has come forward
and managed the business of another without having received any
commission so to do, and that other is thereby laid under a legal
obligation even though he knows nothing of what has taken place. The
reason of this is the general convenience; otherwise people might be
summoned away by some sudden event of pressing importance, and without
commissioning any on