DOUBTLESS a chest has been frequently found very convenient for concealing a gallant or for conveying him to his mistress; however this may be, or have been, it is a common expedient in tales of intrigue, Western as well as Eastern. In the Norse tale of Big Peter and Little Peter, a woman hides her lover, a priest, in a big chest on hearing her husband's knock at the door. Similar instances abound in the early Italian novels; and in Balzac's Contes Drolatiques, one of the canon's nephews (story of the Devil's Heir) tells him how he carries on an intrigue with the wife of a jeweller, by being shut up every night in a chest, to which she goes, under pretence of getting some medicine.

The story of the Lover in the Chest is in some versions of the Seven Vazīrs followed by another, also told by the Damsel: