You can use just about anything to cool down the hot bell

[eriktorbjorn]

>EXAMINE HANDS
There's nothing special about the pair of hands.

>POUR HANDS ON HOT BELL
The water cools the bell and is evaporated.
The bell appears to have cooled down.

>EXAMINE HANDS
You can't see any hands here!

That's because HOT-BELL-F doesn't actually check what you're trying to pour on the bell. It just removes PRSO and assumes everything's fine:

               (<VERB? POUR-ON>
                <REMOVE-CAREFULLY ,PRSO>
                <TELL "The water cools the bell and is evaporated." CR>
                <QUEUE I-XBH 0>
                <I-XBH>)