An even worse phase of fatigue is that which intrudes upon the hours of recreation. It is bad enough for people to become unduly tired at their work; it is worse when they become tired at their play. When amusements cease to afford any gratification, and people lose interest in their favourite hobbies and pursuits, their nervous systems are perilously near a breakdown. This weakness has passed into a further and a more serious stage. Then social intercourse is apt to weary them. They find a difficulty in concentrating their attention on a conversation, especially if the subject under discussion happens to be one demanding close attention. Sometimes, however, even an ordinary chat will tire them out. It may be that they are unable to read the lightest literature, the effort to follow a story proves too much for them. [Sidenote: Change of disposition.] In consequence of all this, they fall into a sad plight. For not only are they deprived of the solace of amusing themselves, but their friends are apt to fight shy of them. When people get into this state they become ultra-sensitive, and see slights and insults where none were meant. They are liable to lose their sense of humour too, and can neither appreciate nor take a joke. After that, it is not long before they see their friends deserting them, which means that they are driven back upon themselves. That, on the top of everything else, depresses them, and they worry still more over unnecessary trifles. Probably they become sleepless, and that will hasten on as nothing else can do the inevitable climax. Irritability of temper is often one of the first signs of this malady, not of course in those who are naturally quarrelsome, but in those who have hitherto been of a genial, companionable disposition. In fact, change of disposition is one of the most significant features in nervous breakdowns. A man who has always taken the greatest pleasure in the society of his children will begin to snap at them without any cause. Their very presence seems to fidget him. His companions find it out, too, for not uncommonly he begins to lose his temper when he is beaten at a game, a thing he has rarely before been known to do. But what is the clearest danger signal of all is when men or women see this irritability worming its way into the solitude of their own thoughts. In one case of neurasthenia the first sign consisted of the fact that the patient found, whenever he was alone, a tendency to have resentful and bitter thoughts even of his best friends. Once or twice he even cut his chin while shaving, simply because he was feeling so angry with a chum, who had not given him the slightest reason for animosity. Sometimes it happens that a man who has not been in the habit of swearing will find himself using bad language in the course of his soliloquies. Once he starts doing that, he may know, without any doubt whatsoever, that his nervous system has gone wrong. [Sidenote: Increased nervousness.]