[Lancey Howard]

Then you got to carry a still warm pile of papers back to the classroom-sniffing all the way!

Yeah... huffing all the way... I even got to pour that ink fluid into the thing from time to time.

[CrazyIvan]

I used to work on office equipment and I think you are getting mimeo and spirit duplicators confused. The mimeo used conventional ink and a wax and fiber stencil. The spirit duplicator used solvent to pass purple dye from a master to paper, hence the smell.