Signalling a late start, just a bit (6)
I believe the answer is:
morsel
'a bit' is the definition.
(I know that bit can be written as morsel)
'signalling a late start' is the wordplay.
'signalling' becomes 'morse' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'start' indicates taking the first letters.
The first letter of 'late' is 'l'.
'morse'+'l'='MORSEL'
'just' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for morsel that I've seen before include "a little food" , "Dainty" , "A small amount of food, just a piece" , "Titbit" , "Scrap, fragment" .)