> Without getting into details, the tale ends with the piper playing his magic pipe to hypnotize the town's children, who follow him out of town and into a dark

> Without getting into details, the tale ends with the piper playing his magic pipe to hypnotize the town's children, who follow him out of town and into a dark cave, never to be seen again. Uh, you are omitting the important detail that the town hired the piper to get rid of rats during the black plague, and the piper played his tune and the rats followed him to their death. After the town refused to pay him for removing the rats, he took his own revenge, playing again but for the children. Hence the saying that one must "pay the piper", as a reference to needing to pay one's debts, the connotation being that a community that refuses to pay their debts is literally jeopardizing their children's future. In this case, we can therefore debate whether the piper is leading children or rats. As the followers are clearly investors, one can make a case for either interpretation.