"Oh, do be quiet, Frieda, and sit down and wait, or, if not, go to your own room," Jack remarked impatiently. "I think you are forgetting our compact very soon. One more objection and you will kindly place your fine in Ruth's charge."
Without replying, Frieda marched haughtily out of the sitting room and into her own and Jean's bed room.
It was true that the night before leaving Naples the Rainbow Ranch party had made a kind of "Traveler's Agreement Society," setting down a number of rules for their mutual benefit and promising to follow them.
The suggestion had come from Olive who was always the peacemaker in all differences of opinion. For although the travelers had been only a few weeks upon their journey, already they had learned that there is nothing that is a surer test of one's amiability than constant sight-seeing, which entails a continuous moving from place to place of people who are expected to do the same things at the same time regardless of their personal tastes and inclination.
From the top of her suit-case Frieda drew forth a sheet of paper. Possibly Jack had been right, for the rules of their compact read:
First: In all questions pertaining to travel, such as the selection of places to be visited, choice of hotels, etc., the rule of the majority shall prevail.
Second: In all questions in which there is a moral issue at stake, a matter of right or wrong to be decided, the chaperon's judgment is to be followed.
Third: If any member of the party becomes weary during the course of the journey, all are to rest. (This rule was made for Jack's protection and was Olive's proposal, knowing that her friend would never voluntarily give up, if she thought her fatigue might interfere with their pleasure.)
Fourth (and this was of Jack's recommendation): Each one shall try to be as agreeable as possible to the others' friends, since it is not to be expected that they could like the same people equally well.
Fifth: If any one of the five travelers shall make three cross speeches in the course of one day, the said traveler is to pay into the keeping of Ruth Drew a fine to the amount of fifty cents, United States money. For the fourth cross speech, one dollar, and so on, with the amount doubling. And at the end of the European trip, this sum, whatever the amount, is to be employed for the purchase of a gift for the girl against whose name there is the smallest number of bad counts.