Cole & Son | Paddy & Louis Border

Paddy & Louis is a border with a joke in it. Along the top of a regency block moulding, drawn as an architectural element and correctly proportioned, two cats have installed themselves, and somewhere in the same run a mouse is hiding. The moulding is entirely serious. The animals are not.

The device works because the drawing gives nothing away. The mouldings are rendered as they would be in an architectural paper, so at a distance the border reads as a plaster enrichment and only resolves into cats on approach. It is offered in one colourway, taken from life: stone for the moulding, tabby for the cats.

Borders of this kind were once the ordinary way of finishing a papered room, and this one still does that job, run at cornice height, above a dado, or around a door case. Because it is representational rather than abstract it is happiest at eye level or above rather than low down. In a child's room, a back stair or a kitchen it earns its place; in a hall it is a small piece of wit for people who look up. The joke works once in a house, which is the correct number of times for a joke of this kind.