By this time the water was boiling, so he took it off with difficulty, nearly burning his fingers and singeing the tail of his coat in so doing.

Into the pannikin he put a lump of maple sugar, and stirred it about with a stick, and tasted it.

It seemed to him even better than tea or coffee.

It was absolutely delicious! Really one has no notion what he can do if he makes believe _very hard_.

The human mind is a nicely balanced and extremely complex machine, and when thrown a little off the balance can be made to believe almost anything, as we see in the case of some poor monomaniacs, who have fancied that they were made of all sorts of things--glass and porcelain, and such like.