Charles Dickens has a close encounter of the canine kind

During his second visit to America, Charles Dickens gave a reading from A Christmas Carol in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 3, 1868. He offered this summary in a letter to a family member the following day. The Dolby mentioned in the letter is George Dolby, the manager of Dickens’ tour. Charles Sumner was a U.S. senator from Massachusetts. Staunton (sic) was Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.
 
I began here last night with great success. The hall being small, the prices were raised to three dollars each ticket. The audience was a superior one, composed of the foremost public men and their families. At the end of the "Carol" they gave a great break out, and applauded, I really believe, for five minutes. You would suppose them to be Manchester shillings instead of Washington half-sovereigns. Immense enthusiasm.

A devoted adherent in this place (an Englishman) had represented to Dolby that if I were taken to an hotel here it would be impossible to secure me a minute's rest, and he undertook to get one Wheleker, a German, who keeps a little Vérey's, to furnish his private dining-rooms for the illustrious traveller's reception. Accordingly here we are, on the first and second floor of a small house, with no one else in it but our people, a French waiter, and a very good French cuisine. Perfectly private, in the city of all the world (I should say) where the hotels are intolerable, and privacy the least possible, and quite comfortable. "Wheleker's Restaurant" is our rather undignified address for the present week.

I dined (against my rules) with Charles Sumner on Sunday, he having been an old friend of mine. Mr. Secretary Staunton (War Minister) was there. He is a man of a very remarkable memory, and famous for his acquaintance with the minutest details of my books. Give him any passage anywhere, and he will instantly cap it and go on with the context. He was commander-in-chief of all the Northern forces concentrated here, and never went to sleep at night without first reading something from my books, which were always with him. I put him through a pretty severe examination, but he was better up than I was.

The gas was very defective indeed last night, and I began with a small speech, to the effect that I must trust to the brightness of their faces for the illumination of mine; this was taken greatly. In the "Carol," a most ridiculous incident occurred all of a sudden. I saw a dog look out from among the seats into the centre aisle, and look very intently at me. The general attention being fixed on me, I don't think anybody saw the dog; but I felt so sure of his turning up again and barking, that I kept my eye wandering about in search of him. He was a very comic dog, and it was well for me that I was reading a very comic part of the book. But when he bounced out into the centre aisle again, in an entirely new place (still looking intently at me) and tried the effect of a bark upon my proceedings, I was seized with such a paroxysm of laughter, that it communicated itself to the audience, and we roared at one another loud and long.