Lying on cloth, white meat I cut, odd bits of herb scattered about (10,4,3,5)
I believe the answer is:
economical with the truth
'lying' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'on cloth white meat i cut odd bits of herb scattered about' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'on' is within the answer.
'white' could be 'w' and 'w' is located in the answer.
'i' could be 'a' and 'a' is found within the answer.
'of' could be 'o' and 'o' is present in the answer.
'about' could be 'c' (abbreviation for 'circa') and 'c' is found within the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for economical with the truth that I've seen is " less than faithful?".)