He would have stood there all night holding it if she had not gently withdrawn it.
'I will provide you a servant,' she said, 'for your journey and to wait upon you afterward.' 'But where am I to go, ma'am, and what am I to do?
You have given me no message to carry, neither have you said what I am wanted for.

I go without a notion whether I am to walk this way or that, or what I am to do when I get I don't know where.' 'Curdie!' said the princess, and there was a tone of reminder in his own name as she spoke it, 'did I not tell you to tell your father and mother that you were to set out for the court?
And you know that lies to the north.

You must learn to use far less direct directions than that.

You must not be like a dull servant that needs to be told again and again before he will understand.

You have orders enough to start with, and you will find, as you go on, and as you need to know, what you have to do.