telnet ...Connection refused

[Debian User <irvine@edu.hel.fi>]

Hello all.

I have been trying to set up my 'email' system
on my computer, on which I recently installed
Debian 2.2r0.

I intend to use exim, procmail, fetchmail, and mutt.

At the moment I am having problems with fetchmail or 
is it with exim or [...fill the space yourself...].

I have been trying to telnet localhost 25 but to no 
avail all I get is 

Trying 127.0.0.1...
Connected to 127.0.0.1.
Escape character is '^]'.
Connection closed by foreign host.

or

Trying 127.0.0.1...
telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

I have used the above setup before (on a machine which used slink) 
without much problems and as for as I know my configuration is 
pretty much the same.

In /etc/exim.conf I have 
	local_domains = localhost:debian  and
	host_accept_relay = localhost

In /etc/inetd.conf I have
	smtp            stream  tcp     wait    mail            /usr/sbin/exim exim -bs

Can anyone offer any pointers as to how I could solve this
problem or how I could troubleshoot this problem.
 
TIA

T:Irvine