.telnetrc not being read at startup of telnet

I'm trying to set up some telnet commands in ~/.telnetrc and they are not being read. The file is

DEFAULT
  mode line

When I go into telnet and do a "display", I get ...

environ         change environment variables ('environ ?'
telnet> display
will flush output when sending interrupt characters.
won't send interrupt characters in urgent mode.
won't read the telnetrc files.
won't map carriage return on output.
will recognize certain control characters.

 Transcribed from [this image , which appears to be cropped.] OS is Ubuntu 18.04. Is something needed to tell telnet to read the .telnetrc file at startup?