Some of these she put into small envelopes, directed to people that she knew, and the rest she shut up in her card-case.
“What are those?” asked Puck.
“These are cards,” said his mother, “which your papa and I are sending to our friends, to let them know that we are going away from the city. The letters ‘P.P.C.’ in the corner stand for ‘Pour prendre congé,’ which is French for ‘To take leave.’”
“Is oo doin away,” asked Puck, “an’ me too?”
“Yes, you are going with us,” replied his mother.
“Den me wants some tards, too,” said the little fellow; and Mrs. Parker, taking a number of blank cards, wrote upon them, “Puck Parker, P.P.C.”
“up in a balloon.”
Cramming his mother’s work-basket upon his comical little head, he seized his cards and trudged away to distribute them among his friends. If he could only have gone out-of-doors, he could have found friends enough to have given them to; but he knew that Augustine would not relent so soon, and so contented himself with carrying them down to Snarlyou and Kiyi. But they were both out in the court, and would not come to him, even when he dropped porridge on the steps to tempt them.