Even under these favorable circumstances there was a “fly in the ointment.” On counting noses I made the discovery that the entire ship's company amounted to thirteen (an unlucky number, as every “salt” will testify). A ship’s crew of eleven, counting myself, and two passengers, my wife and little daughter. When I called this fact to my wife’s attention she laughed at me, saying that was “old sailor’s tommyrot” and that we were living in the twentieth century and should have outgrown such silly superstitions.From the context of the passage, you can determine that “tommyrot” is