Mr Babbage had the sense to do it with much polished brass. Probably worked by a man with a white coat and a serious expression.
I tend to regard computer rodents as expendable, a bit like biros. Except that being tethered, the mouse cannot go into hiding.
My last one was a gentleman one, but I picked it up one day recently, and the locking ring dropped out in two parts, and its ball (gentleman mouse) made its break for freedom. My spare seemed a bit over sensitive, as the curser (not a mis-spell) kept wandering off, leftward and upward, so round to the shop, got a fresh one. A USB (universal serial bewilderment) one. Would it install? Would it buttery(NO). Windows said it wanted a file on the installation CD. Would it find it? Would it (NO). So a repair re-install, since all my backups seemed to have the same trouble. The mouse now worked. Great. The PC then said "Updates are available". 61 of them. Hour and a half later, "Updates are available". "Would you like to install XP SP3?". Hour or so later, give up for the night. Morning after, "Updates are available"
Only 40-odd this time. Came back after lunch, "Updates are available".
Only 4 this time. A couple more tries, we seem to have caught up with it.
From a good back-up it takes about 25 minutes to reload the entire operating system, the programs and settings. The Windows repair install took over an hour (sat on 39 minutes to go for AGES). Then the several hours doing updates.