Furthermore, Joseph Smith was dictating to a gullible disciple, who quit his job to take dictation (since Joe could read a little, but could not write).
They were separated by a blanket hung on a line because Joe was concerned that the sight of the golden tablets would make the novice go blind. Or something.
The secretary’s wife showed up, confiscated all the notes (and her husband) and then challenged Joe to either repeat the first page or two of revelations, or a reasonable fascsimile, so she could compare them to the preserved `gospel’.
Joe punted and found another set of tablets. And a bachelor secretary.
Not exactly correct, but close enough. Actually, the first person Old Joe enlisted to be his scribe was a wealthy bumbler named Martin Harris. It was his wife that saw through the ruse and got her hands on the first 116 pages that had been dictated. She felt that if Old Joe was truly dictating/translating, that it would be a simple task to re-do those 116 pages that were now ‘lost’. But, Old Joe had his-self a bit of a problema, as he knew he could not re-dictate word for word, so he came up with some excuse about using another set of plates. The story would be basically the same, just told a little differently.
Everything you said is a misrepresentation of actual history. In most cases there was no divider between Smith and the scribe. The plates were at times wrapped in a table cloth likely to keep the scribe from being distracted by them or being tempted to take them for gain. But 11 people were shown the plates and not one ever recanted that claim even though several fell away from the church. How do you explain that?
As for the pages that were taken, it was not by some “secretary” who stormed in as claimed. They were taken by one of the scribes to show his wife and they disappeared. As the Lord then told Joseph, those who took it altered them to claim Joseph didn’t have the ability to translate. The claim of there being other plates from which Joseph then re-translated the first part of the Book of Mormon was found throughout the Book of Mormon and was extant prior to the time of pages coming up missing.