Book-buying and hazard pay

Picture me, innocently arriving home on a pleasant (for upstate NY) winter's day, greeted by an envelope that clearly contains a book.  Books, of course, are frequent visitors at my humble abode, but there is always room for one more.  (Well, strictly speaking, there isn't always room for one more.  Still,  I try to observe the code of hospitality whenever a wandering book is concerned.)  I tote the envelope over to my dining room table and--ably assisted by the resident felines, who always materialize when there's a package to be investigated--I open the envelope.

Two things immediately call themselves to my attention.  The first is that, yes, there is an old book in this envelope.  The second is that even packed up in its protective wrappings, the book exudes an odor somewhat akin to the dirty socks worn by a marathon runner who has just finished a race in Arizona.  In the middle of the summer, no less.  Matters fail to improve for my poor proboscis once the book is fully denuded of the surrounding tissues; in fact, they fail to improve after I move several feet away from the offending object.  Even the cats, looking dismayed, head for parts south. 

Braving the fumes once again, I crack the book open and note that the rear board and end-papers show tell-tale black spots around the edges and in the gutter.   A-ha.  Now, I purchased this book knowing full well that it was dampstained and dirty, but the seller explicitly denied the presence of, shall we say, aromatic accompaniment.  Somewhat exasperated, I e-mail the seller to point out that, yes, it was nice that s/he had been so prompt, but surely a note about the smell was in order?

To my astonishment, the seller responds with a somewhat haughty lecture about old books--which, it seems, become musty on occasion--and bluntly denies the existence of any odor.  Why, I would never have known that old books sometimes begin to smell--I'm shocked, shocked.  I never buy old books, nosirree bob! The several hundred nineteenth-century publications on my own shelves? They sprouted there magically, like mushrooms! Couldn't tell a novel published by Henry Colburn from a Vintage paperback, come to think of it. 

Now, the poor book is sitting all by its lonesome, shunned by the other books (and me), until I can get my hands on a box of baking powder.