dda@x700:/tmp$ perl nt.pl
errmsg: problem connecting to "localhost", port 23: Connection refused
dda@x700:/tmp$ cat nt.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;

use Net::Telnet;

my $telnet = new Net::Telnet ( Timeout=>10, Port => 23, Errmode=>'return');
$telnet->open("localhost");
print "errmsg: " . $telnet->errmsg . "\n";
dda@x700:/tmp$