p. p. c. card

[karitaru]

Can anyone help me with the meaning of p. p. c. card from the following paragraph taken from Mark Twain's "PLAYING COURIER"?

He attended to that and came down with an invitation for me to go up--yes, certainly; and, while we walked along over to the bank to get money, and collect my cigars and tobacco, and to the cigar shop to trade back the lottery tickets and get my umbrella, and to Mr. Natural's to pay that cab and send it away, and to the county jail to get my rubbers and leave p. p. c. cards for the Mayor and Supreme Court, he described the weather to me that was prevailing on the upper levels there with the Expedition, and I saw that I was doing very well where I was.

 

[karitaru]

This has to do with the elaborate customs of the 19th Century. P.P.C. is short for the French, pour prendre conge. In English this meant that one was leaving an area. A person would go to a home and leave his card with p.p.c. written on it. The people in the home then would be advised that the one who left the card was going away. A gentleman was expected to carry cards with his name printed on them. Upon visiting a home, he would give a servant his card. The servant would take the card to the resident of the home, or, to the person the visitor told him to take it to. In short, Twain was describing how he was arranging to leave.

Thank you, man.
Your answer makes sense and fits in the story perfectly.
Can't thank you enough.

 

[BobK]

That was a new one on me. A French abbreviation that still is current is 'RSVP' [= répondez s'il vous plaît] written at the bottom of an invitation that requires a response; it is so current that it's even been pressed into service as an informal verb: 'Have you RSVPd yet?'.

b