se a man worked a day for another at his request, and
nothing was said about payment, the law would require him to pay a
reasonable sum for his day's work. Another kind of contract
technically called quasi contract differs somewhat from an implied
contract and will be explained in another place.

To every contract there must be two or more parties, who have the
legal right to make it. Not every person therefore who wishes to make
a contract can legally do so. Of those whose ability to contract are
limited are minors or infants. The period of infancy is fixed by law,
and is therefore a conventional, yet needful regulation. In most
states infancy ends at the age of twenty-one, though some states fix a
younger period, eighteen for women. A person becomes of age at the
beginning of the day before his twenty-first birthday. The reason for
this rule is, the law does not divide a day into a shorter period or
time except when this is required in judicial proceedings. Another
class of incapable contractors are married women. Their disability
however has been largely removed by statutes in all the states, as we
shall learn in another place.

Insane and drunken persons also are under disability to make
contracts. By the old law a drunken man who made a contract was still
liable, and required to fulfill as a penalty for his conduct. A more
humane rule now prevails and he can be relieved, though like a minor,
if he wishes to avoid a contract, he must return the thing purchased,
in other words he can take no advantage of his act to the injury of
the other contracting party. If however he has given a negotiable note
that has passed into the possession of an innocent third person, who
did not know of his drunkenness at the time of making it, he can be
held for its payment. It is not quite so easy to state rules that
apply to insane persons because their conditions vary so greatly. A
person may be insane in some directions and yet his insanity may not
be of a kind affecting his capacity to make at least some kind of
contracts. Again, he may have lucid intervals during which he is
quite as capable of contracting as other persons. And again when an
insane man has made a contract, the relief to which he is entitled
depends on circumstances. In some cases he may repudiate it, a partial
fulfillment only may be required.

The law has much to say about the consideration that is an element in
every contract; in other words, there must be a c