Soc.: Then what share of the work will the third partner take?
Mr. F.: He will act as a reserve and will bring assistance to either party when it is necessary.
Soc.: But, to whom have we allotted the task of unravelling the sense: to the cleverest, have we not? If the help of the third party, then, is only requested when the cleverest finds himself in difficulties, does it seem to you likely that the third party will succeed where one cleverer than himself has failed?
Mr. F.: It is unlikely.
Soc.: And, if this third party is higher and more important than the second party, it is unlikely, is it not, that he will content himself with what we have admitted to be the drudge's work of looking up words in a dictionary?
Mr. F.: It is unlikely.
Soc.: Then the third party will do nothing save profit by the industry of his two companions, and the work that he will produce in the class-room next day will, strictly speaking, be not his at all, but theirs.
Mr. F.: It would seem so, Socrates.
Soc.: Now, let us take a further example. For I am anxious to discover at what exact point the work that a boy produces in form will cease to be, in the official eye, the result of solitary and unaided labour. Suppose that the third party is a member of the Eleven, who has various social duties: it is possible, is it not, that he would prefer to spend over his translation less than the three-quarters of an hour that his two companions require?
Mr. F.: It is possible.