[RndTbl] telnet question

[millward]

I managed to get NFS working between 
one machine with Red Hat 7.3 (server) and 
another machine with Slackware 6.3 kernel 2.0.35
That is, it works when the server is not root.
But what really puzzels me is telnet.
I can ping from both machines with no trouble,
but telnet only works when the server telnet's the
client . 
Telnet fails when the Slackware machine trys to
telnet the Red Hat machine. e.g.
telnet 194.155.75.90
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused
 Is the Slackware 6.3 kernel 2.0.35 telnet version just too
old? Or is something in Red Hat keeping it from connecting?
 Security is not an issue here. This is just two home machines.