I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters (я добросовестно проработал двадцать шесть букв /алфавита/; to plod — с трудом брести, тащиться; продвигаться с трудом /в работе и т.д./; упорно работать, корпеть над чем-либо), and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee (и единственной болезнью, /которой, как/ я мог заключить, я не болел, было воспаление сумки надколенника; to conclude — делать вывод, приходить к заключению; to get; housemaid — горничная, уборщица /особенно в частном доме/; maid — служанка, горничная; дева, девушка; knee — колено).

typhoid ['tafd] wondered ['wndd] ague ['eju:] cholera ['klr] diphtheria [df'r] conscientiously [kn'ensl] knee [ni:]

I sat for a while, frozen with horror; and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages. I came to typhoid fever — read the symptoms — discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it — wondered what else I had got; turned up St. Vitus's Dance — found, as I expected, that I had that too, — began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom, and so started alphabetically — read up ague, and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight. Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and, so far as that was concerned, I might live for years. Cholera I had, with severe complications; and diphtheria I seemed to have been born with.

I plodded conscientiously through the twenty-six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.