"The promise of a gratuitous service, although not enforceable as a promise, involves a liability to use ordinary care and skill in performance";26 or, as it is usually put, the promisee is not liable for nonfeasance, but is liable for misfeasance, and this is sometimes said to be another exception to the rule that consideration is necessary to the validity of every simple contract. The ground of this liability is somewhat obscure. Where a person delivers over property to a bailee or agent, it is perhaps possible to find a consideration in the detriment which the bailor or principal suffers in parting with control.27 But in the mere case of gratuitous service or agency, this element of consideration, if such it be, does not exist. It is sometimes said that the trust and confidence reposed is a sufficient consideration,28 but if this were so it would be a sufficient consideration for the promise to perform, and render the promisee liable for nonfeasance. It must be admitted that the liability in these cases arises independently of any consideration to support the undertaking. Whether this liability is to be regarded as an anom-aly,Jn the law of contract29 or as arising independently of contract 30 need not be considered.